


Don't Have Enough Rain

by Mikkal



Series: Thunder, Lightning, and the Storm [3]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012), DC Comics, The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Character Death, Death Wish, F/F, F/M, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Kind of dark, M/M, Major Depression, Medical Experimentation, Medical Inaccuracies, Medical Torture, Multi, OT3: Westhallen, Self-Harm, Self-Worth Issues, Suicidal Thoughts, series au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-10-22
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-04-27 12:30:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 37,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5048623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkal/pseuds/Mikkal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p></p><blockquote>
  <p>Three months ago, Clyde Mardon went crazy in the CCPD bullpen and several people died, a few more went missing, and the world was violently exposed to the idea of metahumans.</p>
  <p>What the world doesn't know is that those people didn't just go missing. No, they were taken by the very people who are suppose to protect them: the government.</p>
  <p>Now, more and more suspected metahumans are disappearing.</p>
  <p>Now, Cisco Ramon has been working hard trying to find his friend Bette and trying to expose the inhuman treatment of metahumans that he doesn't have proof of, but <i>knows</i> is going on. He's approached by two people who need his help finding their boyfriend and won't take no for an answer.</p>
  <p>Now, Mark Mardon is caught and shoved into the clutches of the government and he is personally exposed to the horrors his kind go through if they're slow enough to be caught.</p>
  <p>--or fast enough, it doesn't matter.</p>
  <p>Everyone is screwed either way.</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

People don’t bother Cisco Ramon. It’s just a rule.

One that started out unspoken at first, but then as people rotated it became a ‘new person tries to approach’ and a regular ‘shakes their head frantically’ sort of thing. He hadn’t done anything mean or terrible to get this kind of treatment, not really. The first time he had been disturbed he accidently made a television screen crack and shatter, the second time someone’s espresso shot glass burst. If it weren’t for the fact he’s a computer wiz-kid and a genius with technology even beyond that, he would’ve been reported to the DMH a long time ago.

            As it is, though, he’s focusing on trying to read through Cadmus Labs’ codes—he broke through the firewall _hours_ ago, but data isn’t exactly streamlined on this side of the information like it is in the movies—when a shadow falls over him. He ignores it for a full minute before he realizes that shadow is not going to go away and he forces himself to focus on the real world for a moment. Cisco kind of regrets it a second later. It’s nowhere near fair for people to be that attractive outside of a magazine or a CW show.

            How is it most of the people in his life are so attractive? Caitlin Snow, Ronnie Raymond, and even Hartley Rathaway when he’s not being a jackass.  

And these two, they’re right up there. The woman has wonderfully dark skin and dark brown eyes with a determined fire burning in them, the vibes he gets from her just screams that she won’t back down from whatever they’re here to ask him about. The man is golden boy perfect: blond hair and baby blue eyes that are seriously the color of a clear sky, his vibe is softer but equally determined. She’s a wild hurricane ready to hit and he’s the rolling, booming thunder.

            Cisco can hear the sound of war drums in his ears looking at them together—

            —yet something’s missing.

            “Cisco?” the woman says. She takes the seat directly in front of him without him even confirming his identity, which he’s not sure he wants to do. “I’m Iris, this is Eddie.” They’re holding hands, tight enough their knuckles are white. “We heard around that you’re the one to talk to about metahumans.”

            He absolutely does _not_ stiffen in his seat, but he does give them a wary look as he closes his laptop. “I’m sorry,” he says slowly. “You’ve got the wrong guy.”

            Eddie shakes his head. “I don’t think we do.”

            Cisco swallows. “Look—.” He cuts himself off when Eddie raises his hand and the tips of his fingers turn a light, shimmering blue, almost like a _flame._ It matches the color of his eyes. Cisco sucks in a breath. “You’re a metahuman,” he says.

            “And I have a metagene,” Iris adds, her voice hushed. “No powers, but it counts a little. ‘ _I have the potential_ ,’” she mocks. She glances around. “We’re on your side. We need your help.”

            “My help?” Cisco says, er, _squeaks._ Because these people don’t have a computer or a tablet or a mp3 player. They don’t want his help with technology, they want his help with something metahuman related even though the most famous metahuman disaster—cleverly named the Metahuman Incident—has his name unfortunately attached to it, along with every known metahumans’ as well. “With what?”

            “Our boyfriend,” Eddie says. And, whoa, not expecting that. “Three months—” And that’s all he says before he presses his lips into a thin line. His eyes turn a little brighter blue. He seems to visibly struggle with what to say, but Iris doesn’t interrupt. “—Three months ago he was in the CCPD when Clyde Mardon went crazy.”

            “Oh,” he breathes, pauses, then says with a little more empathy, “ _Oh shit_. I’m sorry.”

The Metahuman Incident, of-fucking-course.

            Iris shrugs. “It wasn’t your fault.” She grins, just a hint of bitterness in the curl of her lips, at the twisted expression on his face, disbelief and guilt. “My dad… my dad died that day in the chaos, and I can tell you with a steady heart that it wasn’t your fault. General Eiling, ARGUS, Stagg, it was their fault. I don’t see any fault in you except you happen to be a metahuman who worked for a big company who’s provided some great toys to keep metahumans contained.”

            Okay, that doesn’t really make him feel better. _Shit_ —Iris’s dad died and their boyfriend disappeared? He didn’t play any part that was the chaos that is the Metahuman Incident, but the underlying guilt and responsibility _because_ he’s a metahuman and could have done something to help is still there. Almost all good-souled metahuman feels the same way. So many people were lost that day—through death or by other means.

“Playing Devil’s Advocate here,” Cisco says. “And this is going to sound harsh, but what makes you think your boyfriend isn’t dead? A lot of people died.”

            “He _is_ a metahuman,” Eddie says, emphasis on ‘is.’ “And he was the Flash. Eiling knew his identity before he came to collect Clyde.”

            Cisco gapes at them. “’The _Flash_?’” he repeats. He squeezes his eyes shut and puts a hand to his temple, willing the coming headache to _not_ come. His other hand goes up to ward off anything else this trio-minus-one wants to say. “Hold on a minute while I try to comprehend this,” he says. This is way more complicated than he initially believed. “Your boyfriend is _the_ most famous metahuman in the world?” he asks, just a moment of clarification. They nod, in sync. “And what do you want _me_ to do?”

            “We’ve tried everything the last three months,” Iris says, latching on, obviously, to the fact he hasn’t outright told them to get lost. “Nothing’s worked. We can’t even find where they took him. I heard from Thea Merlyn you’re good at hacking and sensing when people are in places. I was hoping you could tell us where he is.”

            “The sensing people thing isn’t accurate,” Cisco points out, tapping his fingers on the lid of his laptop. Remind him to have a talk to Thea about telling people he’s a metahuman and a hacker. “I get this _vibe_ off them and each person has a specific vibe. If I’ve never met them before then I won’t instantly know who it is. You feel like a storm,” he tells Iris. “And you feel like thunder,” he says that to Eddie.

            “He’d feel like lightning,” Eddie says eagerly. “You’ve seen the Flash on the news, before, you’ve see the lightning that follows him around when he runs. It’s not just following him, it’s like he _is_ lightning—fast and brilliant.”  

            Cisco smiles at the obvious emotion in his voice, this vibes screaming love and desperation. If their boyfriend really is the Flash and the famous General Eiling knew his civilian identity before the Metahuman Incident, then there is a ninety-eight percent chance he’s still alive. Not in good shape, but still alive, held prisoner, being experimented on—nope, he doesn’t want to think about it.

            He feels terrible for saying this, but he says it anyway with a sinking heart:

            “I’m sorry, I can’t help you.”

            Their open, eager expression just _shut down._ Eddie seems to fold in on himself, his eyes growing a little duller—Cisco can’t tell if it’s emotion that’s doing that or his powers are some how connected to how fucking bright his eyes are—but Iris leans forward, frowning.

            “ _Why. Not_?”

            He squares his shoulders and meets her head on. She’s not going to hurt him as much as it looks like she is, she’s just angry and heartbroken and terrified and worried. “One of my friends was taken by the army on the same day as the Metahuman Incident. I’ve been trying to hack ARGUS, Stagg, Cadmus, the government, _everyone_ for the past three months. I’ve got test results from all of them, but no locations or even indications of a location. If I haven’t found them by now, then don’t get your hopes up.”

            “We know someone,” Eddie says. “A hacker like you. She’s a sympathizer, a trustful one. If the two of you worked together? Maybe then you can find where they’re keeping the metahumans they took.”

            Cisco narrows his eyes. “Who is this person?”

            “Felicity Smoak.” Iris checks her watch and swears softly. “We have somewhere to be. If you’re willing to help us, not only find Barry, but your friend, _and_ help us expose what’s most likely happening to those metahumans in federal custody.” She places a card down on the table. “Meet us here tomorrow night. We’ll pay all expenses, it’s a long drive, shorter train ride.” She stands, looking a little defeated. “Thanks for listening.” —and then she’s gone out the door, muttering at her mobile.

            Eddie climbs to his feet, but hovers around the table for a little longer. “Thanks for not outright dismissing us,” he says softly. “We’ve heard the rumors.” He rubs the back of his head. “I also heard you use to be a really friendly guy, someone who wanted to do the right thing even if people told you not to.”

            Cisco’s eyes narrow even more. “Who did you—wait, you said, you said Barry.” His heart starts pounding, he only knows one Barry—. “As in Barry Allen? Was an intern for Harrison Wells before the Accelerator blew, that Barry Allen?”

            Eddie smiles at him. “Yeah, he talked a lot about you, Caitlin, Ronnie, and his time at STAR Labs before he finally got the job with the CCPD. I’m going to guess and say you didn’t know he’s been missing?”

            He shakes his head. “We kept in touch for little bit after he joined CSI, but it wasn’t much. We were all so busy.” He curls his fingers and presses them against this chin. “My friend is Bette Sans Souci. She was a EOD specialist for the army. General Eiling grabbed her before they went to the CCPD for Clyde Mardon. I’d heard the Flash was there too, I didn’t realize…” He reaches out for the card, black with dark green text. _The Verdant._ Billionaire Oliver Queen’s new club—Oliver Queen who is a low-key sympathizer and some how manages to stay on top of all the media hate. “Are you sure about this?”

            Eddie folds his arms over his chest, trying to hold himself together. His vibe wavers. “I’ve known Barry for two years, the three of us have been dating for one.” He closes his eyes briefly. “Okay, if you minus the three months, we’ve been dating for only a little while, but there was always something there before, you know?” His eyes open and they’re _bluer._ “I would do _anything_ for Iris and Barry. I am _absolutely_ sure.”

            Cisco’s nerves thrum with the rolling thunder coming from Eddie. He swallows thickly. “I’ll think about it,” he tells him, his mind already half made up.

            The thunder fades ever-so-slightly. “Thank you, Cisco. Just the idea of you thinking about it means a lot.” He takes a step back. “I hope I’ll see you later.” And then he’s gone too, outside with an arm wrapped around Iris’ shoulders against the freezing wind coming from the shore.

            Cisco watches them until they disappear from view. He flips the card through his fingers and glances around the hipster restaurant that has internet access and cheap, but good, food. Only a few people, the regulars, give him curious looks, and he wonders if they’d report him once he stops giving them free tech fixes/upgrades. The selfishness of people never ceases to surprise him, and he guesses that’s the point, once he gets on the level of no longer being surprised by what people do is when he should be worried.

            He checks the time and pulls out his phone. It rings twice before picked up by Ronnie.

            “Hey, can you put me on speaker? I have something to tell you guys.”

[…]

Mark Mardon will always be a criminal—even more so with the death of his little brother—but, as he eyes the steel doors he passes with each step, this is the type of place that could possibly change that.

            Not from a criminal to an upstanding citizen. No, probably to something much, _much_ worse.

            He didn’t mean to get captured by the people who murdered his brother. Snart had sent him out first to wreck some havoc in Coast City, something to just slow down the army convoy cruising down the one-oh-one. If he got them to slow down then it’d be easier to track where they were going and thus easier to find Lisa Snart—who doesn’t have powers, but still has the _potential._

They never knew it was a trap, not even the famous Captain Cold predicted the trap _._

            So, here he is. Somewhere he doesn’t know, walking down the stone hallway with an inhibitor collar around his neck.

How fucking _kinky_ of them.

 He saw Shawna in a testing room they forced him by earlier, the large glass window mirrored so she couldn’t puff through, electrical shocks disrupting her whenever she tried to puff from one corner to another, but also lighting up her body when she didn’t move at all. It made her hair stand on end, fluffed out like a dandelion, and he wishes he could’ve found it funny.

            His wrists ache from being so tight behind him, his shoulders wrenched back, but Mark doesn’t so anything but snarl as his guard dogs. The inhibitor collar keeps him feeling drained, limp, numb. He use to be able to feel the storm in the air, the rain miles away, the bite of frost when he felt like it, now he feels so empty it’s a struggle to breathe.

            They prod his back, shoving him out the door at the end of the hallway into a larger room. It’s built like a modern locker room, sleek and musty. There’s a few lockers against the wall, a shower with the uncomfortable stain of red in the grout, around the drain, and a gurney stowed away in the corner. All in all, it does not scream fun times.

There’s probably a faster way to this room, one that’s not through the entire compound laid out for him to see. There’s two doors, one without a window and one with that shows another, brighter hallways. This had probably been just a scare tactic.

            And he’s a little ashamed to say, it worked a little.

            “What am I doing here?” he rasps out, the collar tight against his throat and semi-choking. “Is the US government into gladiator fights now? Gonna pit us against each other to figure out what makes us tick, kill some of us off while you’re at it?” Because _gym locker room_ immediately brings his thoughts to _gladiator fights_. For all he knows they could just want him to run around to test his heart rate or his speed or something.

            He’s shoved out the door with no window and is immediately proven right.

            There’s no screaming crowd, the audience is a line of cameras high on the ceiling from every angle. The room is large enough for a NBA game but with none of the parts that make it suitable for basketball. He stumbles, his ankle twinging, and the door behind him closes, a piece of the wall falls over it and the door was never there.

            Mark moves his arms without realizing, for a moment, he could actually do it, the binds disappearing sometime between being shoved and the door vanishing. He rubs his wrists, wishing for a fleeting moment he either a) never became a supervillain or b) never ever met Leonard Snart.

            The one thing he would never give up is his powers—but if he never became a criminal, his brother might still be alive because being a criminal put them on the police radar which made it so much easier for the DMH to find him in the end. If he never met Leonard Snart then he wouldn’t be a Rogue and would’ve never been captured by the army and handed over to their Department of Metahuman Hostilities—it’s stitched into every worker’s uniform like a brand of honor.

            “So you’re just going to leave me alone here,” he says to the nearest camera. “That’s no fun. I’ll die of boredom.”

            Something hisses on the other side of the room and a person comes stumbling in. The stranger, male and tall, lands on his knees, not even bothering to catch himself. He drifts to the side, his legs sliding from under him until he’s resting mostly on his hip. Mark furrows his eyebrows in confusion. If they were suppose to fight, then why does—

            Maybe they weren’t suppose to fight?

            The other person is so _silent_. It’s a little disturbing. And he’s so skinny, almost skeletal. The tight black, long sleeved shirt he’s wearing does nothing but make him look smaller, his pants loose jogging capris, and his shoes worn sneakers. He looks like he’s going for a run.

            “Hey!” he calls. “You okay?”

            He’s _not_ worried about a complete stranger. He’s not.

—But if they’re capturing metahumans and metahuman potentials and if the image of Shawna burned into his mind means anything, then they really shouldn’t be hostile to each other. They’re all family now and there’s something so much worse out there now, against them. He can’t be openly mistrustful of someone, especially when it looks like they’ve been here awhile.

The man raises his head and even from far away he can see green, _green_ eyes. They widen and his lips part in a gasp Mark can’t hear. “Mark Mardon?” he asks, voice carrying. “What—?” His head snaps up and he glares at the camera. “Real rich,” he snarks. “First you kill his brother and now you want to torture him. He deserves to go to prison for the crimes he’s committed, not be tortured.”

Mark holds back the snort of amusement. This kid—cos, really, he’s a _kid_ , slighter, smaller, _younger_ than him despite the fact he’s probably in his early- to mid-twenties at most—is going to torture him? Seriously? “I’m lost,” he admits. “ _You’re_ the one who’s going to torture me?”

He shakes his head and stands, staggering ever-so-slightly. “No,” he says, sounding almost apologetic. “They want me to hurt you. Show off my powers and show off yours, and hurt you enough that they can use my blood, my accelerated healing, to heal you all up again, then study you to see if you can give them any power combinations they can recreate.” He takes a deep breath, chest heaving.

God, he’s so skinny.

He sounds so _defeated_.

If this isn’t officially a scare tactic, it should be, Mark has never been more terrified in his life than what his future holds right now. His future that is staring at him with dull, dead, green eyes.

“It amounts to torture,” he adds. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Then don’t do it.”

He shakes his head again, the smallest jerk of his chin. “I can’t _not_. They know who I am, they know my family, my friends. They’ve already killed my friend's dad--basically my foster dad. If I don’t, if _we_ don’t put on the performance they want and I don’t hurt you the way they want they’ll kill them.” He shudders. “If they’re not happy, well, it’s not pretty.”

His inhibitor collar beeps and he feels _light_ again.

There’s the sound of an alarm, short and shrill, and Mark jerks in surprise. He glances across the room at his fellow prisoner—opponent—and gasps when he’s not there anymore. The squeak of shoes behind him has him whirling around, raising a hand instinctively to call down lightning.

The kid is there, closer, panting slightly. “My name’s Barry,” he offers. “Just so you know who to hunt down when we eventually get out of there.” He shrugs one shoulder. “Or if you want to haunt me.”

Then there’s nothing but yellow sparks and _holy shit he’s fighting the Flash._

_He’s so fucking screwed._

 


	2. Chapter 2

The Verdant has a war room. An actual fucking war room.

Thea Merlyn surveys the people scattered around the basement of her brother’s club and tries not to let herself be overwhelmed with the lengths her brother will go. Sometimes he’s a little ridiculous, waving his money around like he’ll never run out, but nowadays he’s been more serious, more secure in his beliefs that—she doesn’t know, but something is different, ever since he came back from Lian Yu.

Iris and Eddie enter with little fanfare, their steps hardly making a noise on the metal stairs leading from the main club floor. Only a few people glance their way, some of them just immediately dismiss them just from a second-long look. It’s sad to think no one knows who integral they are in this movement.

All of them in this room were individuals or small groups working towards a common goal, maybe because their loved one is a metahuman or they themselves are a metahuman, but Iris and Eddie, they sought them out and banded them together. Thea personally thinks they should get a little more credit, but they don’t want to go that way. They just want their boyfriend back.

She doesn’t know Barry Allen very well, but Oliver did at one point, Felicity and Dig too. Laurel, her, and Roy are the only ones who have heard stories of him. She kind of wants to meet him, soon hopefully. But being that he was one of the first metahumans caught by the DMH it seems a little unlikely that anything will happen _soon_.

Laurel comes up and rests her arm on Thea’s shoulder, whistling lowly. “There’s more people than I thought.”

“Yeah.”

“I didn’t think Iris and Eddie reached out so far. Or so diversely.” Laurel points towards an older man with a blue parka standing near a similarly aged man covered in twisted burn scars. “That’s Leonard Snart and Mick Rory. Captain Cold and Heatwave. They were the Flash’s reoccurring enemies.”

“Why are they here?” Thea asks, narrowing her eyes at them. “Wait, Snart—isn’t Lisa Snart a suspected metahuman? I heard chatter on the ARGUS radios.”

“She has the _potential_ ,” someone says suddenly. Thea does _not_ jump, instead she whirls around, facing Cisco with a smile. “Cisco!” She pulls him into a tight hug, laughing lightly. “I’m glad they found you. Caitlin, Ronnie.” She hugs the woman and her husband with equal exuberance.

“You could’ve warned me,” Cisco says, slightly scolding, slightly teasing. “Nearly gave me a heart attack when they showed up.” He pauses, then, softly: “Eddie’s a metahuman.”

            “We know,” Laurel says. “I’m Laurel Drake.” She shakes Ronnie and Caitlin’s hands first before shaking Cisco’s, lingering for a little longer than necessary. Thea hides her grin. “I’ve heard a lot about you, Cisco.”

            Cisco splutters. “…Good…things?” His cheeks are bright red and he swallows.

            “Great things,” she says with a bright smile. “I didn’t expect you to be so handsome, though.” Cisco chokes.

            Thea laughs and steps away with Caitlin and Ronnie, leaving her friends to flirt. The meeting should start any second now anyway.

            “DC’s got anti-meta protests happening still.”

            “I don’t get it,” someone mutters. “The Flash disappeared around the same time as the Incident. Why isn’t he helping? Where’s he hiding?”

            Thea presses her lips together in a thin line and exchanges pained looks with her friends. Half these people don’t know that Iris, Eddie, and Barry are in a relationship, let alone that Barry Allen is the Flash. She wonders when it’s going to be announced just so people stop being so bitchy about it.

            “How many people are metahumans?” Caitlin asks under her breath.

            “Seven, including you and Cisco,” she answers. “Out of twenty-four. Seven more potentials, including me and Ronnie. Ten non-powered-slash-non-potentials.”

            Ronnie whistles. “Holy shit.” The amount of anti-metahuman propaganda being blasted every second and how many people fear the idea of people with powers, twenty-four is a decent number of people. “Do we have an accurate count for the metahumans the DMH has in custody?”

            Thea shakes her head. “We only know of three. Barry Allen, Bette Sans Souci, and Mark Mardon. Lisa Snart is a potential. Mark Mardon was taken two days ago when the Rogues tried to stage an intervention and follow a convoy. It didn’t work out. And those are the ones we know by name, our count is, maybe, ten people.”

            Oliver climbs onto the table in the middle and just stands with crossed arms and a dark look until everyone falls silent. Thea hides a smile behind her hand. Six years ago Oliver had been a much different person, then again, so had she—even last year’s her can’t compare to this year’s. Royal to magician if you will. Royal to solider for him.

            “We all know why we’re here,” he starts out, tone deliberately mysterious. She sees Dig rolls his eyes behind Oliver. “This has been a few months in the works, since the Metahuman Incident, and we finally have our last component.” He gestures towards Cisco, who stiffens and turns into a deer-caught-in-the-headlights. “We’ve been having a hard time finding where the DMH has been keeping their prisoners, we’ve been blocked on every turn. Iris and Eddie have convinced Cisco to join us. With him working with Felicity and Ray, we should have a lead on them in no time.”

            “Is there a plan for when we rescue them?” Alanna Bishop asks. “They’ll be on our side, right?”

            “Only two known were villains—Mark Mardon and Lisa Snart,” Laurel interjects. “Bette Sans Souci isn’t. And Barry Allen—” She glances at Iris and Eddie and Iris gives the tiniest of nods. “Barry is the Flash.”

            Whispers break out that Oliver cuts through with a sharp whistle. Eddie tries to blend in with the wall behind him when more people start giving the two of them more probing looks than before. Yeah they recruited a lot of people, but they’re pretty keep-to-themselves.

            “ _Enough_ ,” Oliver barks. “Yes, Alanna, there is a plan. The plan is to rescue them then get the hell out of dodge. We should get enough evidence of inhumane practices to bring it the U.N.’s attention. Diana Prince is on the committee and she’s a big name metahuman sympathizer. We have to find them first. The test results Felicity has uncovered, they’re…they’re not pretty.” He voice wavers, the first sign of Oliver’s true feelings about this.

            Thea swallows. She’s seen some of those results while looking over Felicity’s shoulder when she hacked into Stagg Industries. None of them had names attached to them, just numbers, and she doesn’t know enough about anyone’s powers to begin guessing based off test results.

The biggest take away is that the DMH have more people in custody than they like to pretend.

The results, as Oliver so eloquently put it, the results are not pretty.

“This isn’t going to be easy,” Oliver continues. He glances back at Felicity and Dig before his eyes drift to meet hers. Thea shudders. “It’s not going to be some grand adventure were we work hard for a couple weeks and gloriously bring them home like heroes. It’s going to be long and rough, and I can’t guarantee that the people we pull out of the hands of the DMH will be the people we remember.”

There’s an awful strangled sound and all eyes turn to Iris. She has a hand to her mouth, Eddie’s arm over her shoulders. She waves away their concerned looks, swallowing visibly.

“If anyone wants to back out now, leave. I won’t give you such an easy chance later.” He surveys each and every one of them. “Any takers?”

Dead silence.

Felicity lets out a hushed cheer.

Twenty-four people. They can do this.

“All right.” Oliver hops down from the table. “Cisco, Felicity, Ray, if you could get started on breaking through the DMH’s encryptions. Unfortunately, most of us are going to be on hold until we find the location. Lyla White—” He jerks his head towards the woman standing near Dig. “—is head of ARGUS since Amanda Waller is AWOL since March. She’s on our side, thank God.” Someone laughs at that. “Some of you are going to work under her. The DMH is keeping ARGUS at a distance, but not enough we can’t use it to our advantage. The rest of you are going to be spread out among the biggest threats to infiltrate them.

“Dig, Mari, and Laurel are going to join Lyla at ARGUS.

“Virgil, Richie, and Ronnie, Stagg has a few openings in his R&D department. Felicity put in an application in for two of you and streamlined it, making another one for Ronnie won’t be a problem.

“Roy, Patty, and Caitlin, you’ve got CADMUS.

“Tommy, you and Thea are going to stick to Merlyn Global. Alanna, you’re going with them.

“Nyssa, Sara, Zatanna, you’re still with the League of Assassins."

Thea fidgets. She really doesn’t want to go back to Merlyn Global, not now, not after what’s she’s found out—not after her and Oliver finally became a family. She loves Tommy with all her heart, but it hadn’t been complete until she learned about her true parentage. She can imagine Malcolm’s reaction now and she forces her stomach not to rebel. Over-exaggerated happiness, the slimy business man façade when, in reality, he’s one of the founding members of the DMH.

And many, many, _many_ other nasty things.

Tommy makes his way from the other side of the room where he’d been talking to Richie and swings an arm over her shoulders, taking advantage of her shortness—five fucking inches _thankyouverymuch_ —by leaning more of his weight than necessary on her. She grunts and tries to half-heartedly shove him off.

He laughs, but doesn’t let go. “At least we won’t be alone,” he says quietly. “Alanna is going with us and the left overs of Team Arrow are going to be in town.”

“We have a better advantage if we split up, I know,” she concedes. “But I don’t like it.”

“No one likes it,” he points out. “But to do good, sometimes we have to do the things we don’t like.”

She finally shoves him off and he windmills back like a doofus. “I’m going to talk to Iris and Eddie. I haven’t seen them since April. Come find me after this shindig is over, I need to go over the invoices with you.”

“Yes, ma’am.” He tips an imaginary hat and heads back over to Richie and Virgil, dipping his head low to talk to them.

Thea has to search for the couple before she finds them in the armory in the back. Iris is leaning against the wall, arms crossed over her chest and glaring at nothing in particular. Eddie’s sitting on the ground, cross-legged and resting his head on his girlfriend’s thigh.

“I don’t think announcing to them that Barry’s the Flash was a good idea,” Iris mutters. “Snart and Rory were there. They know now.”

“Snart’s sister and their fellow Rogue is in DMH’s custody,” Eddie says, rubbing his cheek. “I think we’re fine. Snart has more honor than turning his back on the people helping him, and he has a pretty good hold on Rory’s temper.” He sighs.

“He’s still a bad guy.”

Thea clears her throat, too sharply and too loudly for the space. Eddie jumps, his hand going up to attack, a blue flame on his fingertips. It’s so light that Thea has to squint to see it, but she doesn’t doubt the power—even though she still has no idea what he can do.

“Sorry,” she offers. “I just…I wanted to catch up. It’s been awhile.”

Eddie drops his hand, sighing, and curling in on himself.

Iris gives her a wobbly smile. “Hi. Sorry.”

Thea shakes her head. “Don’t be sorry. I can go, if you want.”

“No, stay.” Iris pushes herself off from the wall. “You’re right. Let’s go to dinner?”

 […]

 After a month-and-a-half, even the DMH becomes predictable. It’s not even shocking he can keep track of time, and he’s ninety-eight percent sure he’s accurate.

            Hartley Rathaway curls up tighter on his bunk, tucking his numb hands under his armpits. His thigh still throbs from fucking _Woodward_ ; the unknown blood transfusion the doctors did on him a week ago only healed him half-way. He shudders, his veins still burning with the feeling.

            He should really get up and poke around his cell some more. Hartley’s pretty sure he’s close to figuring out the spot in the wall that’s thinnest to send sound to the next one. The biggest problem is the damn inhibitor collar that’s only turned off in two places: the gymnasium and the interrogation rooms.

            Neither places are conducive to figuring out how the damn things work to turn them off permanently. The interrogation rooms are controlled experiments of his power, the gymnasium is a not-so-controlled test of their powers against each other. Like he’s some sort of rooster ready for a cock fight.

His first fight was against the fucking _Flash_ —fucking _Barry Allen_ , the ‘intern extraordinaire’ before Hartley came along and Allen figured out he was too outshined to stay around Harrison Wells _and_ Hartley Rathaway and ran to the Central City Police Department. Then the Golden Spot was filled by _Cisco fucking Ramon._ What is his life?

He’s heard chatter from the guards, even if they don’t think he can hear it, and it turns out each of their metahumans get their first fight against the Flash, even Plastique even though she had been the first one captured and the Flash second three-and-a-half months ago.

They call Hartley the Pied Piper. Ew. So much for creativity. Negative ten points for the U.S. government.

Hartley sighs and heaves himself up to his feet, wobbly for a second as his leg gets use to the weight. Fucking fuck fuck. If his parents weren’t such assholes, he wouldn’t be right now, but _no._ They had to disown him and now no one’s looking for him.

He kneels on the ground and presses his fingers against the corner of the room and drags them up along the bend, pretending, for a moment, that his powers weren’t locked away from him. If he had his powers he would hear the faint beating of someone’s heart—probably Peek-a-Boo, Shawna? —and, if he tries hard enough, the sound of her flickering. Even though she doesn’t use her powers, she always sounds like she’s flickering like a bad connection, a puff of smoke wisp-ing away.

He could hear all of that, if only he had his powers—but he _doesn’t_ and that _pisses him off._

His nail catches on a sharp dip in the concrete, bending it back and shoving a piece under the nail bed. He swears and sticks the digit in his mouth, scowling at the offending spot on the wall. This God-damn, fucking stupid place. He’d much rather be back in STAR Labs competing against Cisco Ramon, or even Barry Allen if Hartley’s willing to suffer through that nightmare again.

Cisco he can accept as a serious scientist, he’s got his bumbling moments and can be goofy, but the other man is quick-witted and nearly as smart as Hartley. Barry, on the other hand, is completely below the level of ‘being in their league’ that the fact he has to _fight_ the damn man now is insulting.

 Jesus, what is his life?

He hears the sound of boots on the ground before they get to his door. Hartley scrambles away from the wall in the most dignified manner as possible. When the door opens he’s sitting cross legged on his bunk, chin cradled in his hands, and the most bored expression he can muster on his face.

“Rathaway—.” No discernable features, the voice is neutral, Hartley can’t tell if the person is male or female, neither or both. “Let’s go.”

“And if I say no? Cos, this is getting boring.”

His muscles lock and spasm before he feels the pain. He drops to the floor, convulsing as electrical shocks course through his nerves. If the blood transfusion was painful, this is _worse_. Blood bursts in his mouth, his ankle smacks the metal frame of his bunk.

The shocks end, but the pain doesn’t. He lays there twitching—the muscles in his back, his abdominal, seizing. He waits until he can finally breathe without it hurting before heaving himself up on trembling arms. He wipes at the blood trickling down his chin, his tongue throbbing. Hartley drags his pant leg up with shaking fingers and winces at the deep bruise already blossoming.

Great, and he’s going to have to fight like this too.

A hand grabs his bicep and drags him up to swaying feet. It’s by luck he doesn’t fall to the ground immediately. He can think of a few people he doesn’t want to fight right now—Weather Wizard, Flash, hell, even Girder would be nice to avoid. _(fucking Woodward)_

Hartley’s shoved out of his cell into the hallway. Despite the face he’s ninety-nine percent sure it’s mid-June and they’re somewhere in the Mid-West of the States, the hallway is freezing cold. His breath is visible for a few seconds longer than comfortable until it dissipates.

Instead of heading straight to the locker room, they steer him to the experimental rooms—blood transfusions, scalpels, that fire burning through his veins. _No, no, no_.

His digs his heels into the ground only to be yanked forward. There’s nothing he can do to fight these people without his powers. His meals are limited; his sleep is limited. He’s limited by the shittest things _ever_.

They shove him to the room, the light brighter than the cells, and he blinks against the harshness. That’s never a good sign. There’s two gurneys this time, one is angled up in a lounge position and situated in the middle of the room and the other pushed to the side—that one is filled by… _Barry?_

Hartley doesn’t bother _not_ staring as he’s shoved to his own gurney and strapped down. The other man doesn’t even acknowledge that people have entered the room, just stares at the ceiling with scarily blank eyes, his hands clenching into fists rhythmically. Open. Close. Open. Close. He’s tugging at the restraints almost absentmindedly, even from here Hartley can see the red, inflamed, not-yet-raw rings around his wrists and he wonders, faintly, about his healing factor. Hartley furrows his eyebrows when he catches sight of the tear tracks on his cheeks, shiny and wet.

And he’s not wearing an inhibitor collar like the rest of them.

Now that he thinks about it, he wasn’t wearing one when they fought that first time.

Rage boils deep in his gut when that detail hits him.

 _Fucking fucker._ Everyone talked about how _good_ and _wholesome_ Barry Allen was. How he was the light everyone missed in their lives when he wasn’t here. Even Caitlin Snow talked about him with glowing terms—terms she usually reserved for Harrison Wells the genius that he is and Ronnie Raymond who everyone couldn’t help but like.

‘Barry Allen still smiled in the face of darkness! He had a tragic past that he didn’t let it turn him into a brooding mess of a person! He’s a strong person, the best person [I] have ever known!’

(he’s not bitter, he promises)

Yet, here he is, fighting against people just like him, people he should see a kindred spirit in, for a group who loves nothing more than dissecting them like dead frogs splayed out on a table.

Hartley’s hands curl into fists. He wishes he knew the schedule for their fights, because he swears to God, the next time he’s up against the Flash, he won’t hold back. Barry Allen doesn’t deserve that kind of leniency. Hartley may be a dick to people he doesn’t like—which is most people—but he was willing to give everyone here the benefit of doubt considering the circumstances, even Barry Allen.

Well, consider him on the same level as Tony fucking Woodward and Roy Bivolo, oh, and that annoying fucker Hal Jordan—who is a potential yet still strangely resilient and resourceful.

The scientists are bustling around him, not paying him any heed. It’s not like Hartley can fight back anyway, and he’s more of a ‘bid my time’ sort of person anyway—patient and willing to see how everything pans out first. So he gets to watch Barry for a little longer, noticing that none of the scientists are hovering around the speedster either. That just adds more evidence to his ‘Barry Allen is working for the DMH’ theory. He has no inhibitor collar on, no IV attached to him, yet he just lays there without a guard?

Barry mutters something under his breath, his head lolling to the side. His eyes drift across the room, never lingering on anything for too long. Hartley expects a flicker of recognition, they did work together for five months after all, but there’s nothing there.

One of the lead scientists is suddenly hovering over the speedster, flicking a pen light in his eyes. “Bivolo’s Y-S is fading,” she announces. “Get the Flash back to the Freezer, I want to see how well he does under the influence of Y-S in that thing.”

At ‘freezer’ Barry stiffens and starts tugging at his restraints a little more frantically, his chest heaving as his breaths get shorter and faster. The muttering increases to agitated, his head jerking, his arms tugging. Someone grabs the end of the gurney, at Barry’s feet, and starts to push him towards the opposite wall from where Hartley came in at. Barry’s back arches as he thrashes, or tries to thrash.

Hartley has to strain to hear what he’s saying—despite how distressed he is, his mutterings never get louder. His stomach swoops at each begged ‘ _No, no, no, no, please, don’t. Please don’t._ ’

Maybe? —

Okay, it’s rare, but maybe, maybe he’s wrong?

But then…then why all the seemingly lenient actions? The Flash could be the most dangerous of them all if they just took away his morals and honor code—and with the experiments the DMH conduct that could strip away anyone’s tendency towards good.

The Flash goes through a door Hartley hadn’t noticed, frost edging the frame and a thermostat on the outside. When he’s out of sight, Hartley’s shoulders tighten when he remembers where he is. He’s not here to watch the Flash possibly get experimented on.

There’s a choked scream from the freezer.

He shudders.

He’s here for his own experiments. Hartley tugs at his own restraints, anxiety and fear washing through him like a wave, tightening his chest, closing his throat. He tries to swallow, only to choke. Phantom sensations of drills and scalpels against his ears make his eyes prick with stinging tears.

Forget his hatred for his family right now.

He wants to go home.

A scientist wheels a metal table over and removes the protective covering, revealing drills and knives and something he can’t identify.

Hartley tugs one more time at the restraint on his left hand, willing himself to suddenly gain super strength. He wants to go home. He wants his bed and his rat, and a hot drink and maybe one of those caramelized apples that the Jitters in Central City use to sell. If he makes it out of here—there’s so many promises he could make, so many of them. So many he doesn’t want to make, let alone keep.

He sobs, unable to suppress it.

Someone pulls up in a seat next to him, grabbing a drill. She doesn’t talk to him, but to her assistant about him, like he’s not a person. Like he’s an alien or an animal or an _it._

The screeching drill starts up and Hartley squeezes his eyes shut, clutching at the gurney sheets under him.

“Please,” he mutters. “No, no, no, please, don’t. Please don’t.”

_Please, Please—I want to get out of here._

_I want to go home._


	3. Chapter 3

Eddie can’t decide between eggs and pancakes or cereal for breakfast.

 On one hand, pancakes would take longer, but it’s the type of food they need right now especially if he adds blueberries and strawberries; the other hand, though, cereal is much, much faster and he’s not sure he has enough energy to make pancakes anyway.

             But blueberry/strawberry pancakes always made Iris smile and Eddie loves it when Iris smiles, there’s been a lot less of the happy feelings these last four months.

            He sighs and leans his forehead against the fridge door, his hand loosely wrapped around the handle. If someone told him two years ago he’d be dating two people, one a metahuman and the other a potential, and he’d be a metahuman himself, he would count it as nonsense and go about his day. But here he is.

            Eddie leans more of his weight against the stainless steel kitchen appliance, the cool seeping into his skin in the best way possible. His powers have nothing to do with fire, they just happen to look like it, but he feels so overheated all of the time. There’s no connection to his unique powers with the overheated-ness and he should really see someone about it—but who would he see? Anyone who’s an expert in metahumans is automatically untrustworthy and it’s too late to ask Caitlin Snow to take a look because she’s squared away in a Cadmus Lab. He could ask Cisco, but he’s busy in Starling—oh, sorry, Star City, they changed it only four months ago—with Felicity and Ray.

            He thumps his head on the door a few times. God, he hates this feeling of complete uselessness. The only two people more useless than him right now are Snart and Rory—and they’re _criminals_. He’s not, neither is Iris. Without epic computer skills and/or genius science magic, all they are is a ex-detective metahuman and an investigative reporter. There’s only so much they can do, it took forever to track down the people in their group now and now they’re all scattered around again—

            Oh, hey, now that he thinks about it, he’s not sure he has the ingredients for pancakes and eggs. Eddie opens the fridge and rummages around, damn, sure enough they forgot to pick up milk last night. He groans and goes back to leaning against the fridge, the door even colder now that he opened it once.

What is is? Murphy’s—no, Finagle’s Law? Anything that can go wrong will go wrong?

            Everything had been going mostly right even after the Particle Accelerator explosion almost a year and half ago ago. Minus the occasional game-breaking injury that healed up in a few days, but still left him and Iris flailing and helpless because _they’re not trained medical professionals, Barry, stop putting yourself in so much danger,_ minus those incidents and the creation of his Rogues Gallery, Barry’s first year as the Flash was pretty uneventful. Then ten months into it he had the joy of running into General Wade Eiling and got put on his radar, then fourteen months later the Metahuman Incident.

            Eddie shoves off from the fridge and heads back to the bedroom where Iris is still sprawled out, clutching one pillow to her cheek and the other bundled under her arm. He leans a shoulder against the door frame, watching her with a fond smile. Iris likes to hog the sheets, something he was surprised to find out when they first slept together and he suddenly found himself without a comforter. In response, he bought a few blankets and piled them on the bed so if she takes one or two he still has some left behind. Barry usually just shoved himself as close as he could to one of them for body heat and blanket sharing. It became a sweltering oven after he got struck by lightning, Iris actually stopped hoarding the blankets then too.

            And now she’s hoarding again, because Barry’s not here.

            He’s tired of feeling so helpless. He couldn’t do anything for Barry when he was in his coma and he can’t do anything for him now.

_He’s so fucking useless._

            “Stop thinking,” Iris mumbles. “Come back to bed.”

            Eddie lets his smile grow a little wider. “Can’t.”

            She doesn’t even lift up her head, just presses her face into the pillow even more. “Why not?” she asks, muffled and sleepy, adorable.

            “You’re playing starfish again.” He sits on the edge of the bed, tracing his fingers over her back, causing her to shiver.

            “Oh, I’m sorry, did you want to come back to bed?”

            He laughs softly and crawls over her, hovering until she peeks an eye open and raises an eyebrow in question. Eddie grins at her then plops down, catching most of his weight so he doesn’t crush her, but she still lets out an _oomph!_ as all the air leaves her lungs. She lets out a breathless laugh and rolls over, Eddie letting up a little to let her move easily.

            “I want to,” he tells her. “But I shouldn’t. We should go for breakfast and head to Fort Leonard Wood. Your meeting is at eleven, remember?”

            She groans. “Who needs a phone reminder when you’re around. Can’t you go instead?”

            “I’m not the investigative reporter, but thanks for the confidence.” He brushes some hair from her eyes. “I was going to make pancakes, but we have no milk. That rules out cereal too.”

            “Oops. I blame Felicity for that.” She wraps her arms around his neck and pulls him closer until more of his weight is on her, his face pressed against her shoulder. She presses her fingers into the back of his head and drags them down to his neck. “The bed’s still too big,” she whispers.

            He sighs, shoulders drooping. They moved from the main bedroom to the spare bedroom a long time ago, almost immediately after the Metahuman Incident, in attempt to keep the empty space next to them from being too big, but it didn’t work.

            “I know,” he murmurs. “We just have to hold on. It can’t be much longer now with so many people working on finding them.”

 He should feel bad that his main goal is mostly about Barry than the other metahumans, they used Cisco’s friend as an incentive, Lisa and Mark’s capture to get villains on their side. The help from the Star City team and the Dakota City boys is unexpected, and Eddie’s a little unsure of how much they should trust them to be honest, but he won’t deny their help. He’ll let his mistrust boil over once Barry’s safe and sound, if need be.

“It should’ve never happened to begin with,” Iris insists, her breath hot in his ear. “None of it should.” She sobs, tightening her grip. “Barry. Dad. I don’t have anyone left but you.”

“And when we find Barry, you’ll have him too.” He presses a kiss to her shoulder and she shivers. “You will never be alone, Iris. I’m right here.”

“You’re a metahuman,” she says. “How long until Eiling finds out and takes you too?”

He pulls back a little to meet her eyes. “He won’t find out,” he assures her. “And if he does, it’ll be too late. He’ll be taken down, blacklisted. He won’t be a threat anymore and the Metahuman Protection Act will be in place.”

“We still need to get someone to write that,” she mumbles. “And turn it into Congress. Or whatever.” She tugs on him a little and he leans down to oblige a kiss. “I miss them so much.”

“I do too,” he says, resting their foreheads together. “I love you.”

She smiles a wobbly smile around another sob. “I love you too.” She drags both hands up through his hair, making it stand on end. “Come on. I don’t want to think about this anymore.”

Getting ready for the day is a slightly somber affair, what with their heavy conversation earlier and everything. Eddie doesn’t have anything special to do today except drop Iris off at Fort Leonard Wood, her new coworker Linda Park agreed to give her a ride home and it’d be a little suspicious if she’d said no, so he dresses casually in jeans and a t-shirt. He kind of wants to wear something with longer sleeves, but it’s too warm for a sweatshirt.

Eddie spots one of Barry’s long sleeved button downs that Iris had been using to sleep in a month or so ago until she threw it in the wash and exchanged it for Barry’s STAR Labs pull over. He glances down at his blue shirt and back at the red and black button down then shrugs it on, leaving unbuttoned. It’s one of the too-big ones Barry liked to wear when he wasn’t feeling his best. And now Eddie’s not feeling his best, so, why not?

Iris steps out of the bathroom, her make up done and her hair flawless. It’s shorter than it was four months ago, to her chin now and much curlier as she lets the relaxer in her hair grow out. He passes by her as she heads to the other bedroom where most of their clothes still are, the spare bedroom’s closet is not nearly big enough for one person’s entire wardrobe, let alone three people’s.

He brushes his teeth and runs wet hands through his hair, smoothing down the ruffles Iris made. There’s bags under his eyes, his face it a little paler than normal, and his stubble is more beard than not. The longer they go like this the less energy he has to do simple things. They should really talk to someone. He sees what’s happening to Iris as well, even worse with the fact her _dad is dead_ , but who could they talk to that’s trustworthy enough? He trusts Lyla in ARGUS, but her and co. are too close to the DMH to try approaching them for anything that has to do with mental health.

“Where are you thinking for breakfast?” Iris asks. He glances up in the mirror to see her leaning against the doorframe, meeting his eyes through his reflection. She grimaces. “Turn down the nightlight please.”

He glances at himself and groans at how bright his eyes are. “I can’t. I’m upset. Is it sunny outside?”

She looks through the window and nods. “Yeah. Let’s go to Carrie O’s. They have a patio so it won’t look weird if you keep wearing sunglasses.”

“Sounds good to me.”

They have breakfast—and the sun is, indeed, blinding. Thank God.—and do their best to avoid talking about the situation at hand, which is really fucking difficult since it’s consuming their lives like a monster in the deep, deep darkness. They hold hands and make jokes, but there’s that undercurrent of stress and depression that feels like it’s branded on their heads for everyone to see. It feels like everyone at Carrie O’s is just _watching_ them, _knowing_ who they are, what they are, who their boyfriend is.

Eddie curls his shoulders, trying to make himself smaller, and Iris gets quieter and quieter as they eat their meals. The only good part is Iris is actually eating full meal, especially something with vegetables (three-cheese omelet with spinach) and fruit (a mixed fruit bowl with fresh, high quality fruit that she picked all the pineapples out and ate the raspberries first).

“You need to eat too, you know,” Iris says, the corner of her lips quirking up slightly. “I’m not the only one without an appetite. Don’t think I don’t see it.”

Eddie takes a deliberate bite of his pancakes and chew obnoxiously just to make her laugh. And she does laugh, her nose wrinkling and her eyes practically closing. Iris flicks a piece of her long-hated-pineapple at him, smacking him in the chin. He wipes the juice off and sticks out his tongue, making her laugh again.

He’s fully aware that they’re not handling this whole thing very well, it’s down right unhealthy. But, in reality, Eddie’s not sure what to do other than what they’re doing. They’re still alive, still functioning. Sometimes it’s all too much, but they’re still trying.

He tucks a few bills into the check holder and stands, holding out his arm for Iris to take. She smiles slightly at the gesture and curls her fingers around the crook of his arm, using him to help herself up a bit then leaning on him in comfort. Barry would’ve been on her other side, his arm out just like Eddie’s. Iris would laugh and talk about ‘her boys’ and how ‘ _badass I feel, having the Flash and Detective Thawne escort me to my meeting_.’

The ride to Fort Leonard Wood takes an hour and in that time frame he gets to hear Iris’ rant about the high-speed train between Central and Star City for the tenth time. He hangs on to every word, her research adding more information every time, and thinks about how much easier it’ll be to get to the Verdant when Cisco, Felicity, and Ray finally find the information they’ve all been waiting for. He knows she has the same idea, because she tacks on how long it will take at the end of every conversation about it.

“—four hours! It use to to take ten, eleven hours, but we can cut that in half!” Her phone beeps with an incoming message. She answers it quickly and shakes her head. “Linda’s running a bit late. She’ll meet me at the front gate.”

“They’re expecting you, right?” Eddie asks, just to make sure. “There’s a day-pass and everything?”

She grabs his hand and squeezes tight. “Of course. I’ll be okay. They can’t automatically test for a metagene yet. We’re _years_ away from tech like that.”

To the public (being Fort Leonard Wood and the Central City Picture News) it looks like Iris West and Linda Park are just interviewing their fellow journalists embedded in the army for a small spread for the Fourth of July, but, in reality, Iris is looking for any information on the DMH—Ray developed some nanotech to help them out a little.

“Or months,” Eddie points out. “There’s too many high-tech companies working on any kind of metahuman tech.”

Iris fiddles with the rings around her throat—both her parents’ wedding rings. “But they’re not testing today. I’ll be fine.”

He sighs. “Okay, okay.” He twists their hands and presses his lips to the back of her hand. “Text me when you can. I don’t rust any of these soldiers. Who knows who’s working with Eiling.”

[…]

Bette Sans Souci despises everything right about now. Her stomach is sore from both the lack of food and the punch she got from Tony Woodward—at least is was before their collars got deactivated so he wasn’t covered in metal just yet. She’s in a constant state of itchiness and swollen fingers and toes due to the cold and her fucking allergy to the worst thing ever. Bette’s pretty sure the room next to her is one of the experiment rooms and she saw an industrial freezer in there last time—why they had an industrial freezer she had no idea. And, not to mention, being held captive during her wonderful time of the fucking month is not a fun situation to be in, for the fourth time in a row.

            She leans her back against the coldest wall in her cell. There’s not much in here to be used as a bomb, but her pillow might work, or if she worked one of the bolts keeping her bunk attached to the floor that would be a better bomb. If she ever gets out of here she doesn’t want to leave anyone behind—maybe Woodward—and that means whoever might be in the experiment rooms.

            It’s been four months, though. Hopelessness is not a new feeling to her, but that doesn’t mean she has to like it.

            Bette blows warm air on her reddened fingers, bending them as much as she can. When she got her bomb making powers her ability to create low level heat became a thing. Only a little bit, just enough that her whole ‘fingers and toes get swollen when cold’ thing got a lot more manageable. That had been the best thing about her powers, but now the itchy and the pain is back and those annoying spots on her feet that get swollen so it makes it feel like she’s walking on rubber until it goes away are also fucking back.

            There’s a noise at her door and she stubbornly crosses her arms over her chest, glaring at the door as it slides open. Her hands shake, her heart beats wildly in her rib cage. She kind of just wants to slide to the ground and curl up in a ball, hands over her head to protect her from this _horror, God it’s so terrible, please stop, please._

            But she stands her ground and hopes they don’t see the fear on her face.

            Despise and terror. Not very good combinations.

            “Plastique. Come.”

            What an _awful_ code name—seriously.

            One of the two holds out their hand, as if to guide her out of her cell. She takes a wide berth around it and walks a little in front of them. What she wouldn’t give to just take off running now and make it through the front doors before anyone gunned her down. That thought crosses her mind and she automatically traces the long, thick scar down her sternum. It still aches when she thinks about it, knives and bright lights, the burning in her veins afterwards.

            Bette shakes her head—who is she suppose to fight today? She hasn’t seen everyone the DMH has in their clutches. She counts eight doors, not including hers, when she’s marched down the hall, but she’s only faced five of them. Six? They’re all very distinctive, but one of them…one of them, she’s not sure he’s even kept in a cell like them.

            The locker room is colder than normal; the whole compound seems to be colder than normal. What on Earth could they be doing?

            She does her best to avoid looking at the door leading to the gym—but one look has her heart pounding, her breathing stutters. _God_ —why, why? Why did it have to be her? What deity did she piss off that they decided to just keep fucking with her life?

            There’s already someone in the gym when she’s shoved in there—always with the shoving—dark haired with a twist of white blond and, the fuck, are those _wings?_

She’s like how Bette would imagine an angel would look like—pretty, poised, wings stretched out like she’s about to take flight. They’re an off-white, almost grey and brown, and Bette almost believes that’s their true color until she moves them and dirt crumbles from them, along with a damaged feather or two.

            The door shuts behind her, but Bette doesn’t pay it any attention. “What’s your name?”

            “Kendra,” she says, her voice no more than a rasp. Kendra Saunders. They like to call me Hawkgirl.”

            “Bette Sans Souci,” she offers. “Plastique. How long have you been here?”

            She shuffles nervously, taking a step back. “A month and half.”

            “Four months,” she says without the question to preamble it. “I don’t really want to fight you.” She wants to say sorry—but now, she’s just _tired._ She shrugs.

            Kendra gives her a wobbly smile. “I know. I had to fight the Flash.” She swallows thickly. “He said the same thing…Why are they doing this to us?”

            “Because they can.”

            Bette reaches behind her to feel for the bag they normally throw in after her—the one with either marbles or screws to use as fuel—but nothing’s there. Her heart skips one terrifying beat. This woman has _wings_ and Bette has _nothing_ , if Kendra so chooses she can take flight and beat Bette no problem, without her bombs she has nothing.

            Without her _powers_ she has nothing—her inhibitor collar is still activated. _God fucking damn it._

“That’s not fair!” she shouts at the cameras, louder than a normal shout to make sure the microphones pick it up. “Fuck you!”

            The alarm sounds, the start of the fight, and Kendra takes flight instantly. Her balance is wobbly, one wing acting wonky compared to the other, dragging behind like it’s injured. God—she has _wings_ ; she can’t get over that. She can’t imagine what they’re doing to her in the interrogation rooms, what kind of experiments they like to perform on her.

            _Wings_.

            Kendra dives down, the wind behind her whistling. Bette stands her ground for just a second before diving out of the way, hitting the ground hard.

            “Use your powers,” Kendra shouts.

            Bette scrambles for something, _anything_ to help her and comes up with her…shoe. The hawk-woman comes soaring down again, raining feathers, and Bette nails her in the face with her shoe. She screeches and crashes into the wall, crumbling to the floor. Bette jumps away from her flailing wings, tripping when the off-balance of missing a shoe hits her. She lands on her ass, her stomach twinging in pain.

            “Ow, fuck!” She scrubs at her face. “Did you…did you just hit me with your _shoe_? What the fuck?”

            “They usually give me a weapon, what did you expect?” Bette gestures at her neck. “And my inhibitor collar is still on, yours is off! I’m at a disadvantage.”

            “Aren’t you military trained?” Kendra demands, scrambling to her feet. “I saw you on the news!”

            “How the hell do you remember that?” Bette slowly stands, her knee popping painfully. “That was like six months ago.”

            “I have a good memory.”

            The collar beeps faintly in her ear and she gets a _rush_ of energy that just _fills_ her up. She forgets how much she misses this until she feels her powers comes back. Her hands instantly become less itchy, the swollen spot on her foot sinks down. That’s, like, the greatest relief out of all of this. Kendra wasn’t going to kill her—it’s obvious by just looking at her to tell that she’s not a killer, not by a long shot.

            She has powers now, but no ammunition.

            Something tickles her cheek and she plucks at it to find an off-white feather in her hair. She blows on it, watching the dust fly up from it. “Your wings—.”

            “I know, don’t get me started. They won’t let me clean them at all.” Kendra brushes off her clothes.

            Bette focuses a little, the tips of her fingers warms and the feather gaining a faint purple hue. She grins, it works—well, she half-expected it to work, she has yet to find anything that didn’t work as a bomb, but there’s always that short, terrifying moment, where it would not work.

            She eyes the other woman carefully and cuts off her power to the feather. It’ll cause only a small explosion now, temporarily blinding her opponent. She has an advantage of military training and the ability to withstand enhanced interrogation—something that makes this DMH thing seem like child’s play and that worries her more than not. Kendra has flight and _possible_ superstrength, but other than that she’s a normal civilian who’s not use to harsh conditions like malnutrition and low temperatures.

            Bette doesn’t want to kill someone who doesn’t deserve it.

            Which means she can’t wait to get her hands on Eiling and anyone else in charge of the Department of Metahuman Hostiles.

            She takes a breath and tosses the now heavier feather at Hawkwoman. Kendra doesn’t notice until it’s blowing up in her face and she cries out in pain, stumbling back against the wall. Her hands scrabble at her face, her fingers turned into claws, and Bette winces, resisting the urge to pull her hands away from herself.

            She can’t though— _she can’t_. There’s too many people she knows out there, too many metahumans the DMH aren’t aware of yet, but, but they wanted to teach Bette a lesson by going after her friends they’ll find them, and she can’t stand the idea of people like Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon in here with her. Caitlin already had the slippery slope after the Particle Accelerator exploded, a lot of them did, but they pulled out of it, they fixed it.

            She can’t risk their sanity. She can’t risk their lives.

            Bette steps back from Kendra, her knee buckling under her weight.

            _Who do you have on the outside? Who are you keeping safe?_ She wants to ask that so badly, but Kendra’s curled up, whimpering, and _she_ did that. She caused that pain. It’s different than Mark Mardon and Tony Woodward, they were criminals. It’s different than the Flash, she can barely touch him, but Kendra…

            “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _wow_ this did not got the way I planned. Sorry for the delay, but this chapter was _such_ a bitch to write. It's a little shorter than the others, but it's mostly filler with a little bit of worldbuilding. Everything I have planned are for later in the story and chapter....4 would've been too early. We're going to travel to less angst-ridden waters after this, but, trust me, it's still gonna be there!

“We’ve severely limited who can get their hero on in Star City,” Felicity comments as her computer gives yet another alert of a break in at yet another jewelry store. How many jewelry stores are in Star? _Who keeps opening jewelry stories in the same city whose crime rates are third highest in the country?_ “Arrow, thirteenth and Main.”

            She then promptly ignores the argument that breaks out between Thea and Oliver about who will take it. Because why choose different names when you can choose the same one with a different color in front? This had been so much easier with one Arrow—but she can’t deny her gratefulness for Red Arrow, especially when the only person who can actively get their hero on is either her or Oliver.

            Felicity has two Skype calls going on at the same time, one with Ray even though he really should be working and one with Cisco, who is…in his apartment?

            Thea takes the robbery just as Cisco starts complaining about Cadmus—

            “Come on, switch with me, Felicity,” he urges, his face indistinct as he leans back to grab something. “I’d rather take Stagg. Cadmus is boring. Roy got me access to the security cameras, but there’s no audio. Again, _boring._ I can’t even see the files Caitlin’s working on, they’re behind thirteen individual firewalls.”

Felicity rolls her eyes and shrugs. “Sure, yeah, why not?” She transfers her connection to the Stagg database to Cisco with a smile. “Give it a shot.”

            “ _IIII_ do not like that smile,” he says suspiciously, scooting closer to his computer. “Why are you smiling like that?” There’s the brief sound of keys clacking. “Oh, you menace!” he exclaims. “Come on, that’s not fair. Take it back.”

            Ray muffles a snort of laughter.

            “But you asked for it,” she says sweetly even as she gains control of the connection again. Someone on the Stagg Industries team must be into French and, unfortunately, those files seem to be the ones she wants. Not only is it French, it’s French _code—_ like this part of Stagg seems to be keeping what they’re doing a secret from the rest of the company.

            Which isn’t the best sign in the world, to be honest.

            “…Felicity, why are you guys helping us?” Cisco asks quietly, her name sounding faded in the microphone before it catches. “I mean. I know why Snart and Rory are, and Iris and Eddie. And me and my friends. But why are you helping?”

            She sighs, sliding off her glasses to rub the bridge of her nose. “We ran into a metahuman a few weeks after the Incident,” she says. “He was a bad guy—Jake Simmons—but we were trying to put him away through ARGUS. ARGUS would’ve been the best, attempt to either rehabilitate him or just keep him locked up like you would normally do with criminals.” She scrubs at her face, relived when she remembers she didn’t put on any makeup today. “We’d been to facilities. We knew what to expect, there was nothing inhumane about it. But when we tried to convince Simmons of that he…he killed himself. Right there, in front of us.” Cisco sucks in a breath. “Yeah. That’s when we realized there might be something more going on than just one thing in Central City. We couldn’t just leave it like that.”

            “But that implies that there’s people out there with access to at least some of the information we’re looking for,” Ray points out, rubbing his eyes. “How do they have information we don’t? Who are ‘they?’”

            “That’s one of the questions of the hour.” Cisco grimaces. “There’s a lot of questions.” He runs a hand through his hair, bundling it up into a bun. “I know we haven’t been going at this for very long, it’s only been a month, but it’s disheartening that we haven’t gotten anymore information.” Four months post-Incident, she can’t imagine what’s happening to those people in the tender mercies of the DMH.

Ray hums, then audibly cuts off.  “Circus.”

“What?”

 “There was a circus in Central City the week of the Particle Accelerator explosion,” he says, leaning closer, his face bleaching paler. “After three months of death-defying acts and a memorable show of horrors, their ring leader, Mr. Bliss, disappeared for two months. Maybe that was the start of the DMH? He could’ve been a metahuman.”

“Was he the only one to disappear? How would Simmons know if no one ever saw, what did you call him, Mr. Bliss again?” Felicity asks, even as she does a search for the circus. She finds a few back-logged tweets about the circus being in town and the amazing and horrifying the show was, but that’s it, there’s not even a missing persons report filed for one Nathan Bliss.

Cisco shakes his head. “I remember that circus, Ronnie wanted to go to it so much, but they arrived a few days before the Accelerator was to go online and we were all hands on deck at that point. Dr. Wells,” —he winces— “Dr. Wells got to the point of calling in former employees who left on good terms and people from other companies for some extra hands.”

Interesting, Harrison Wells did not seem like that person ready to admit he needed or needs help.

“No, wait, you said ‘two months,’” Cisco points out. “What happened after two months?”

Ray shrugs. “The circus never went up again. Mr. Bliss vanished from the public eye. There was never actually confirmation he reappeared.”

“We have that confirmation now if we take Jake Simmons’ suicide as evidence he knew more than us, learned it from Mr. Bliss maybe.” Felicity taps her nails on her desk, taking a quick glance at the CCTV feed showing Red Arrow probably having a little too much fun kicking ass. At least Arsenal isn’t there, the two of them together is devastating to watch sometimes. She really doesn’t want to deal with that. “Hold on a second,” she tells Cisco and Ray then taps her comm. unit. “Green, what’s your status?”

“Ten minutes,” he grunts. She hears the sound of boots hitting pavement. “Then I’m back to the club. How’s Red?”

Felicity grins. “Is she ignoring you?”

He growls and immediately clicks his comm. Not turning it off of course, but telling her this conversation is over while not voice it. She laughs loudly at his pouting.

“I have no idea what’s going on, but it’s kind of hilarious watching you laugh a absolutely nothing,” Ray comments. Cisco snorts. “That was mean, wasn’t it?”

Felicity glares at him. “Just a little.” She cracks her knuckles. “Okay, boys, we really need to get down to business. We have one week to figure this out before we go for more direct approaches.”

There’s that little niggle in the back of her mind, though, that they’re going to find absolutely _nothing at all._ She’s already spent almost four months on this, two with Ray, then one with Cisco, Cisco who started out four months ago too, and all they have are coded data results. They don’t know everyone’s name of who was taken, they don’t know the exact extent of the experiments being conducted, and they definitely do not know the location of the compound keeping them. There’s only so many compound listed on file, there are even more not listed.

When she, when she heard about Barry being taken, she didn’t believe it at first. Not Barry Allen, the sweet guy who danced with her at a crappy party even though Oliver seemed to dislike him for no reason other than he learned the Green Arrow’s identity to save his life, not the amazing hero that was on the news more often than not rescuing people from places he really shouldn’t be going. Then she heard about who he was taken _by_ —then connecting that to the Metahuman Incident…

Let’s just say she couldn’t call Iris and Eddie fast enough.

Hearing the normally strong and brave Iris West break down over the phone for her lost father and missing boyfriend sent Felicity into tears along with her. She could barely get the words out to Eddie when he took over the conversation, sounding not at all put together, his voice wobbly and full of tears.

[ _“They’re keeping quiet right now. I don’t—Felicity, we don’t know what to do. We weren’t prepared for the hero business to begin with, let alone anything like this happening. We—.”_

 _“Don’t worry. Let me call Oliver. You’re not alone.”_ ]

And Bette. She doesn’t know Bette, but anyone in the hands of General Eiling—just _no._

They’re going to figure this out.

_They have to figure this out._

[…]

He comes home, stumbling, bleary-eyed, and covered in soot. Iris drops the book she hadn’t been reading, the spine cracking on the ground, and rushes to catch him before he too hits the floor. She grunts when she gets his full weight, his shoulder digging into her chest, but she doesn’t let go, just sinks to the ground with him, the hardwood cold on her skin.

            “Shit, Barry, what happened? Are you hurt?” She brushes a hand through his messed hair, it comes back grey. He groans and sags even more against her. “Barry, come on.”

            Barry paws at her shoulder, his hand clumsy. “I’m f-fine,” he croaks out. “F-Fire. Floor c-collapsed.”

            Her throat tightens. “Is everyone okay?” He nods against her shoulder, pressing his nose to her sweatshirt. “Where’s Eddie?”

            “On his w-way.” He taps his ear, fingers shaking. “Had him h-here.”

            Iris presses her cheek against his temple. “You’re suppose to call me before you rush into things,” she whispers. They agreed a long time ago the three of them would be in this together, not two, not one, but three. She drags her hand down his arm, feeling him tremble ever-so-slightly. “Are you hurt?” she asks again.

            “My leg,” he admits quietly, his voice clearer now. She glances down and tries not to gag are the sight of the ugly burns curling around his calf. The edges are already scabbed, faded like they’re days old than mere minutes. “I’ll be o-okay.”

            “We need to get you a new uniform,” she says. “This one doesn’t offer much protection.” Homemade does not always equal good.

            Iris doesn’t even attempt to move, Barry needs a shower and food and he’s too shaky and spent to get up himself and she’s not strong enough to drag him to the bathroom. She leans over to shove the door close before curling over Barry, running a hand through his hair and scratching at his scalp. He sighs, pressing closer.

            “Feels good,” he mumbles.

            She huffs a laugh. “Giant cat, that’s what you are.” He practically _melts_ when she drags her nails down the back of his neck. She flattens out her hand as she moves further down his back, pressing lightly between his shoulder blades, the knots there pressing back against her. “You need to take some time off, you’re overworking yourself.”

            It’s been two months since he woke up from his devastatingly long coma, and not a day goes by that Barry _doesn’t_ put himself in harms way. She has no idea how she’s going to get it through his thick skull that his life is worth more than he seems to think.

            “’m not.”

            Iris sighs. “How many emergencies did you help with today?” There’s a long beat of silence, hesitance. “Barry—.”

            “Five,” he breathes out. “Five. I couldn’t—I couldn’t let them just _happen_ , I had to help.” His fingers curl into her sweatshirt, he wiggles his arm from between them and wraps it around her waist. She’s yanked forward a little bit, like he’s trying to press them even closer together. “I couldn’t _leave them.”_

            “Shh,” she soothes. “Calm down.” His heart is hummingbird fast, his breathing hitching. “You did good, Barry. I promise.”

            The lock turns in the door and it swings open, Eddie’s standing there, running a hand through his hair. He freezes at the sight of them on the floor, tired blue eyes widening in surprise before he’s dropping to his knees, his hands hovering over Barry, ghosting over his shoulders and his legs.

            “You said you weren’t hurt!” Eddie accuses. “Barry!”

            “I’m _fine_ ,” he says. “It’s already healing.”

            Eddie falls back on his toes, knocking the door close with his shoulder. “Then why are you on the floor?” His eyes drift up to meet Iris’ and she smiles thinly.

            “He dropped as soon as he got here,” she says. “I didn’t want to move him on my own. He needs a shower and food.”

            “I’m right here,” Barry grumbles.

            Iris scratches his head again and he sags. “I know you are, but can you get up?” He doesn’t even bother replying. “Thought so. Eeny, meeny, miny, moe for a shower, babe.”

            He groans. “Can’t I just stay here? I’m comfortable.”

            Eddie snorts. “Who knew we were dating a five-year-old?” He leans over Barry, kissing Iris lightly, his hand solid on Barry’s back. He pulls back only a little bit, his thumb rubbing circles over a shoulder blade. “I know you’re tired, Barry. You wouldn’t believe the relived messages coming over the tip line.” The tip line specifically for metahuman related things, but somehow ended up being the Flash fans way of letting the city know how much they love their hero, the CCPN has one just like it and even a Flash column where they publish some of the more heartwarming and/or funny ones. “But you need to take care of yourself right now. Let us help.”

            Barry sighs. “Eeny, meeny, miny, Eddie.” He looks up at her through his eyelashes, guilty and apologetic. “Sorry, I don’t think I’ll be much help holding myself up right now.”

            Iris shushes him gently. It pains her whenever he gets like this, guilty and sorry because he let himself get to this state by saving people, strangers, lets himself get to a state where he has absolutely no energy and Iris and Eddie have to help him. She knows he feels like a burden, like he’s _troubling_ them, but he’s _not_ , she swears, he’s not. Does she wish for him to take his own actually very high worth into account more often? Yes, yes she does. But she never wants him to feel guilty for doing everything he can to save people.

            One day they’ll get him to understand that.

            Maybe.

            “It’s okay,” she assures him. She curls over a presses a kiss to his forehead, he leans into it. “I’ll order food while Eddie’s helping you, okay?” When she pulls back his eyes are closed, only just fluttering open a second later. His exhaustion is clear as day on his face, bags under his eyes, his cheeks a little more hollowed than a few days ago. She thumbs over his cheekbone. “Don’t worry about it,” she says. “There’s nothing wrong with needing a little help.” She feels his scoff more than hears it, just a breath.

            “Give yourself a lot of credit, babe,” Eddie says. “You did a lot of work today, it’s only fair you take a while and rest.”

            Barry heaves himself away from Iris, his arms shaking, but holding steady. That doesn’t keep her from holding onto his shoulders, her fingers curling into his shirt. Eddie grabs one of his arms and swings it over his shoulder, wrapping both of his arms around Barry’s waist.

            He noses the side of their boyfriend’s temple, kissing him lightly. “You’re a hero,” he mumbles softly. “But even heroes need support sometimes.” He flashes a smile at her. “We’ll be back.”

            Iris watches them trod down the hall to the bathroom, Eddie saying something that makes Barry laugh. She scoops up the bag that holds Barry’s bright red, homemade uniform and hugs it close to her chest, suddenly feeling very cold—

[…]

_Cold—_

The wrong move sends his joints popping, cracking like ice. For a moment, a brief, terrible, _wonderful moment_ , he imagines shattering into a million pieces, darkness, sleep, _peace_ finally blanketing him. He’s not sure how long he’s been here, he’s not even sure how many people he’s fought, how many people’s lives he’s destroyed by hurting them, exposing their weaknesses, their strengths to people who just want to _ruin_ them, _hurt_ them.

            Tony Woodward lets out a cry of pain as he finally loses the energy to keep his metal form and Barry get’s a good punch to his shoulder, even moving at half his normal pace is fast enough to shatter the bone and send the former-bully to the ground, clutching the injury and swearing a blue streak. Barry skids to a stop ten feet from him, doubled over and panting, his chest tight and breaths _wheezing_. His left hand aches from the ill-angled punch, but his right…from his wrist to elbow throbs in time with his heart, but his hand is completely numb, shattered just like Tony’s no-doubt, from a badly timed punch that met metal instead of soft skin and joints.

            _Oh God—_ his stomach rolls and he gags. He, he…those thoughts, he’s not suppose to have thoughts like that, disgusting, tearing thoughts about the perfect ways in incapacitate someone in the worst way without killing them, he’s not suppose to think of soft joints and the perfect pressure to break a shoulder or a femur. If they were on a blacktop in Central City like the first time they thought—back when Barry was a _superhero_ and Girder was a supervillain—all he had to do was knock him out, not _injure him like this, oh God, his_ shoulder.

            And he can’t leave him like this either.

            He can’t. He _can’t—_

They gave an order. And if he doesn’t follow—They already murdered Joe to make him comply, he can’t, he can’t let them get to his dad, or Iris, or Eddie. He just _can’t._ If this is the only way to keep his family safe, even if it turns him into a monster in their eyes—if he ever gets to see them again—he _has to._

Tony’s face is gaunt, hollowed, dark bags under his eyes, his hair oily and untamed, his face covered in a beard that has to be a few weeks old—Barry absently drags fingers across his chin, his own beard growing in again after the last forceful shave, do they let the other prisoners shave? Bath? God, he hasn’t had a proper bath in who knows how long. There’s women here too, Bette, he knows Bette’s name—what about them and their period? God, that has to be so fucking awful—

            “B-Barry,” Tony hisses, his eyes wide and, and—Barry gags again— _fearful, Tony’s_ scared _of him._ “Stop. Whatever you’re about to do, just _stop_.”

            One foot in front of the other, his toes dragging against the wooden floor. His shoes are too tight; his feet might be swollen to be honest. Barry continues to scratch at his beard, his fingers going to his lips and picking at the cracked and dry skin peeling from them. He watches Tony try to scoot away, but he can’t seem to find the energy to get him.

            _I’m so sorry._

The words are stuck in his throat, catch with a hitching breath. _I don’t want to do this; you have to understand. I don’t want to hurt you. Please, please, forgive me. You don’t deserve_ this.

            A flash of half-speed and he’s on top of Tony, his knee digging into the other metahuman’s stomach, his hand braced against his shattered shoulder. Tony chokes and cries out, tears dripping down his cheeks. Barry sobs, squeezing his eyes shut. It’s not that bad, he tries to tell himself, he just needs to break his ribs. Not all of them, not close to dying. Just, break his rubs. _You already_ shattered _his shoulder, what’s it worth to not break his ribs?_

He presses a hand flat on his chest, his eyes cracking open to stare at his fingers, his nails cracked and scabbed, cold-rashes covering his palm.

            — _cold—_

Barry taps into his energy, his useless, limited energy, and _vibrates_ his hand, keeping it pressed tightly against Tony’s chest, feeling the other man’s body tremble with him, his skin rippling with the forces. There’s a moment, only a moment, then Tony is _howling_ as his ribs crack then _break_ —he stops just before they shatter, throwing himself off Tony and stumbling back, his legs shaking so hard _they_ could be vibrating themselves.

            Tony lays there, screaming and crying, the hand of his good arm scrabbling at his pant leg in replace of anything less satisfying to cling to. Barry drops to his knees, the joints cracking against the hard wood, and he cries with him, cries for the pain he’s caused and the tortures he’s allowing to happen by not fighting back.

            Eddie, Iris, and his dad.

            He has to remember that.

            If he doesn’t do this. So many people will be killed. Not just his family, innocents in no way connected to him. Just to prove they can.

            And he’s pathetic enough to comply.

            They can kill him, he’d be okay with that, but everyone else—

            “I’m s-sorry,” he chokes out finally, pathetic, useless, _weak._ “T-Tony, I’m s-so _s-sorry.”_

The loud shrill of the fight’s end it too fucking loud in his ears and he flinches, curling his hands on the side of his head in an attempt to block it out. He can still hear Tony, only barely muffled—they’re going to pull Barry out of here first, strap him down to a table, gurney thing before they bring in Tony.

            They’re not gentle with him when they yank his wrists behind him and cuff him with tight, cold metal. His shoulders are wrenched back and he gasps even after hundreds of this same thing on repeat. Someone _heaves_ him to his feet, his knees buckling just a bit, but he’s shoved forward, barely catching himself before he goes sprawling back to the ground.

            Turn, turn, turn, open room, then _table, straps, bright, bright lights._ He almost doesn’t bother trying to fight back, he’s just so Goddamn _tired._ There’s no point.

            _There’s no point._

            But he tugs at the straps anyway, the cuffs chaffing at his already damaged wrists. They’d rolled up his sleeves to get access to the crook of his elbow, they never strap him down with them rolled down.

            He clenches his injured hand into a fist at the first prick of a needle, his bones _grinding_ and he whimpers, gasping at the pain lightning up his nerves.

            “He’s too dehydrated,” someone comments quietly, but he still flinches violently at the voice. “Pack him up with nine more bags then send him back to the Freezer, give him five hours in there on high temp.”

            “ _No_ ,” escapes him before he can clamp down on it. “No, no, _please_.”

            Please, anywhere but there—he’s—no—please.

He chokes on a sob, tugging harder on the straps. They’re not going to set his hand, they’re not going to let him warm up, they’re just going to _throw_ him to the cold, even if it’s on the warmer side of freezing. He throws himself in a panic, his chest tightening, his breathing growing labored. Tears drip from the corner of his eyes, pooling in his ears and wetting his hair.

The dark, the cold, the tiny, _tiny_ space.

“Ugh,” someone says in disgust. “Drop it down to just one more and put him back where he belongs. I don’t want to deal with the crying. _This_ was a superhero? — _the_ superhero? I find that hard to believe.” There’s a snort of laughter.

His chest burns with shame, the tears still falling, the panic clogging his throat. He doesn’t argue— _can’t_ argue, not just because of panic—but the absolute _truth_ behind those words. He’s nothing, reduced to a blubbering mess of pathetic-ness at the idea of of a too small, too cold, too dark room—to be honest, he _was_ nothing, he did _nothing._

He is _nothing._

The end of his gurney is grabbed by the same man who does it every day and he’s pushed towards the door to the Freezer. The sounds of Tony finally bring brought in drowns out the blood rushing in his ears, he sucks in a breath harshly through his nose, the already-cold burning his chest. He deserves this, he tells himself.

_I deserve this._

He _hurts_ people, he’s hurt them so many times. He’s too weak to find another way to protect his loved ones and the innocents threatened everyday.  He’s suppose to be a hero.

 _The_ hero.

The gurney is shoved against the wall, rattling his bones. His joints lock up at the first wave of cold, his breath visible in the air. He whimpers, twisting against the straps around his wrists and thighs and ankles. There’s the sound of Velcro and he _moves,_ rolling off the gurney and smacking the ground with a bone rattling _thud!_ He cries out, his hand _screaming_ at him, his knee throbbing.

This is his punishment.

He scrambles for a corner, tucking his legs close against his chest, cradling his hand between them. The man who brought him here laughs, mockingly and dark. Barry shudders, curling his shoulders, trying to get as small as possible. If he’s small enough maybe they’ll ignore him. If he’s small enough maybe the monsters in the shadows will ignore him.

Punishment, this is his punishment for failing at being a hero, for selfishly thinking he could make a difference. Punishment for risking others for his family, for innocent people who don’t have a clue.

The door _slams_ shut and he bites down on a scream of fear, pain, helplessness, tasting copper bursting on this tongue. The shadows close in, the cold seeps through his skin, never leaving, never letting go.

He’s afraid.

And alone.

—fucking _good_ , it’s better this way, for everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't worry! Iris is getting a proper POV soon. She just happened to pop up here! (And by proper I mean angst and grief, present day proper)
> 
> Also, did _not_ plan for that ending. Like, I wanted it to be more exciting.


	5. Chapter 5

One step, two steps, three steps— _too many more steps._

            It’s a chore to walk to the bathroom, especially when all she wants to do is curl up in the warm spot Eddie left behind and sleep her problems away. The light burns when she flicks it on and something cracks, grinds, when she sits down a little too heavily. Her whole body aches, itches, feels so oily even though she’s pretty sure she took a shower just the other day…or was it before that? She could’ve sworn—okay, she took a shower to head to an interview…on Wednesday? That couldn’t have been her only shower—that interview was _last_ Wednesday, wasn’t it? She’s definitely had one since then, in the last eight days— _God,_ eight days?

            Iris’ eyes burn, she scrubs furiously at the tears, her nails nicking the corners of her eyes. She swears and yanks her hands down, smacking one against the toilet paper holder.

            “ _Fuck!”_

            Thank God Eddie isn’t here right now; he can’t see her like this.

            But eight-fucking-days, he’s been seeing her like this, this whole time. She wipes her nose. The fact that he’s still around—he doesn’t deserve this kind of shit. She needs to wash her hair; she needs to shave her legs. She rubs her calves together, feeling the prickles. Shaving her legs and her pits will go a long way in making her feel _clean._

            Iris yanks off her tank top, getting it tangled in her headscarf, and swears loudly as she gets herself out of the deathtrap she made herself. She kicks off her panties and just _sits_ there for a minute, breathing deeply and deliberately, flexing her throbbing hand against her thigh.

            She should shower. It’s _right_ there and she’s already naked. But it’d be so much easier to just back to bed. It already takes a long time to wash her hair properly, but going a long time without washing it just adds to the time it takes.

            She hooks her fingers through her mom and dad’s wedding rings around her neck and takes a deep breath, closing her eyes briefly before getting up. She drops the lid close and turns on the shower, resisting the urge to make it as hot as possible and just goes for just-slightly-hotter-than-warm.

            Four-and-a-half months, you’d think she’d be _better_ , not _worse._ Isn’t acknowledgement the first step in overcoming her problem? She’s acknowledged her problems—she has no one left other than Eddie. The more days go by the less she believes Barry will be found, let alone found alive.

            She presses her hands on her cheeks, shaking her head. No, no, thoughts like that just make it worse. Eddie is here, Eddie is patient, Eddie is _alive—_ but she can see the struggle in him too. They have nothing to offer the rest of their team, he’s a cop with no department and she’s a reporter who doesn’t have a big enough name to have the weight to actually do something. Snart and Rory probably could have it worse, but they actually have their criminal underground and any unsavory people they could beat answers out of.

            So, really, her and Eddie are the most useless out of all of them. They don’t even know what Eddie’s powers can do yet and she’s got _nothing._

Into the shower she goes, nearly falling when her foot just _slips_ on the bottom. She stands there for a long time, just letting the water run over her, eyes closed and face turned towards the spray. She could probably get away with not actually washing, just rinsing out her hair, but the idea of going back to bed…Iris sighs and grabs her shampoo and starts lathering up her hair, humming under her breath.

            It takes her a moment to figure out what she’s humming, hell it takes her through conditioning and shaving a leg and a half to realize she’s humming _Seasons of Love_ from RENT, her dad’s favorite musical, her dad’s favorite song, especially the character Tom Collins’ part—which he could belt out no problem.

            The razor slips from her fingers, clattering to the ground, the blade coming off the handle. She goes down with it, sudden and fast, not even bothering to catch herself. Iris hits the ground with a _smack!_ , her thighs stinging. She doesn’t cry—

            —she doesn’t cry. Her chest is hollow, her throat burns, closes up, and her hands shake. But as much as she possibly wants to cry, the tears don’t come. She’s all cried out—damn it, no, it’s only been four months, she can’t run out of tears already—I mean, it’s a relief, but it’s not.

            Iris covers her face with both hands, blocking the water from drowning her, and sobs. She misses her dad, his laughs, his hugs, his food.  She misses the way he would tell her funny stories from her childhood even if she’s heard them a million and one times, she misses when they would just curl up on the couch with the family album and he would tell her stories about her mom. He would always get that look in his eye during those times, so much love and worship even twenty years later. She misses his reactions to her, Barry, and Eddie when they got up in their antics, love and fondness mixed with exasperation.

            The water roars in her ears, splashing down in the puddle forming where her foot meets the bend of her knee. She shifts, letting the water flow down the drain. She watches it from between her fingers, her breath stuttering.

            Did—Did she do something wrong? Is there something she did that made it _okay_ for all these terrible things to happen? She doesn’t deserve this— _none of them deserve this_ and yet it’s happening anyway. What cosmic entity did they piss off? What wrongdoing is catching up to them now? They’ve been nothing but decent people, trying their hardest to make things work, to do good, and yet, _yet—_

 _Mom, Dad,_ Barry—

Iris sobs, digging her fingers against her forehead, curling her legs closer. This was a bad idea; she shouldn’t have taken a shower. There’s nothing to keep her from these miserable thoughts, nothing to keep her from imaging _awful_ scenarios Barry could be in right now.

            They don’t know much, the files proving hard to break into and decipher, but they do know they’re being experimented on.—The thought of _Barry_ being tortured in the name of fucking _science_ makes her cold. Of all people—not Barry, not the man who _breathes_ science and the impossible, who works every day to have science _help people_ and he’s there, and, and—

She scrabbles for her razor, clipping the head back on the handle, and goes back to her leg. It’s pointless, the shaving cream’s already washed off, she can’t remember where she stopped, and she’s shaking so hard she nicks her leg several times—but she does it anyway, paying attention to each swipe methodically, dragging her hand over her skin to find patches she missed, smearing blood up and down her leg. _Pay attention to this_.

            Eddie finds her like that an hour later and really, her only thought is: _holy hell I slept in later than I thought_. The water’s lukewarm, borderline freezing, but at least she’s stopped bleeding…mostly. That doesn’t mean she’s gotten up from the ground, though. In fact, she’s curled up even more, knees pulled close to her chest, her arms wrapped around her legs.

            She can hear him sigh over the water, small and contained. A wave of self-loathing swallows her whole—how dare she let Eddie come home _this_? He has enough on his plate than dealing with her issues.

            The water turns off, the knob squeaking, and the shower door slides open all the way, the cold air from the apartment making her shiver. She buries her face in the nest of arms and knees she’s made, pressing her forehead against her wrists. Iris jumps when something soft and warm is draped over her head and shoulders then Eddie’s arm is wrapping around her, pulling her close even though she’s soaked to the bone and he’s still wearing his work clothes.

            He’s warm and smells like smoke. He kisses her head, his fingers curled tightly around her bicep like he’s never letting go and she really, _really_ doesn’t want him to. As much as she thinks he deserves better, that he needs his own chance at healing, he’s the only thing keeping her anchored in reality.

            “This sucks,” she croaks out, her voice too loud and echo-y. He laughs softly at the understatement. She closes her eyes. “Am I a horrible person if I say this would be so much easier if he was just dead?” Her eyes sting, just when she thought she ran out of tears.

            Eddie pulls away and she nearly lunges for him—yes, yes it makes her a horrible person. _Of course it does_. But, but if Barry were _dead_ then he’d be at peace, he’d be okay, he’d be with his mom and her dad. Eddie has every right to pull away, with what she just said.

            But then she jumps when he climbs into the tub with her. It’s too small, cramped, and they probably look ridiculous—him fully clothed, and her only wearing a towel over her head and shoulders, but then he wraps his arms around her and pulls her against his chest, his shoulders shaking, terrible sobs ripping from deep in his chest. She curls up against him, fisting his shirt, her knees pressed awkwardly on his thigh, and her feet under the crook of his knee. It’s so uncomfortable, but she doesn’t let go, doesn’t create any space between them, just lets herself ruin his shirt with tears and mutter apologies under her breath.

            “No,” he murmurs. “Don’t, don’t apologies.” He sniffles, his thumb digging into her shoulder absently.   
“I’ve been thinking the same thing.” He chokes on—chokes on his words, his guilt, his tears? “I don’t think it makes us horrible people,” he says slowly, painfully. “Just people in a very, very bad spot right now whose thoughts are getting away from us.”

            She presses her face against his shoulder, his shirt’s already ruined, might as well finish it off. “I can’t stand this. I miss him. I miss them both. It’s been four months, I thought ‘time heals all wounds?’”

            Eddie sighs again. “I know,” is all he says and some how, that’s enough for right now.

            Iris relaxes against him. “We have to go to Star tomorrow, don’t we?” she mumbles.

            “I can postpone,” he says. “Tell Oliver we just can’t do it tomorrow. They’ll understand.”

            She shakes her head. “No, no, we need to see what they have.”

            Eddie’s arms tighten around her and despite the fact her lungs are now squeezed just as tight, she’s never felt more comfortable than this moment in the last four months. “It’s going to be okay,” he murmurs, more to her than himself. “It has to be.”

[…]

 When Shawna was fifteen a guy from class punched in her in the face and broken her front tooth in half with his ring. She hadn’t provoked him, but she had denied his request to go to Homecoming with him, she wanted to ask Amalia and go with her, and she knew the other girl would say yes, they’d been talking about it for while. So she said no to Jackson and he punched her in the face.

            Her mouth ached for _days_ afterwards, her mom and Amalia’s mom pooled money together to fix her up, just in enough time for both Homecoming with Amalia and to punch Jackson in the face and knee him in the balls. Shawna wasn’t much of a fighter, still isn’t much of a fighter, but she wasn’t going to take something like that misogynist asshole laying down.

            The way her mouth felt back then, her teeth aching, her lips numb, that’s how she feels now, the taste of a battery on the tip of her tongue. The taste won’t go away, even after a week of no single-person experiments.

            She sighs and curls her arms around her legs even tighter. Shawna kind of wonders what happened to Amalia, did she finish her Masters in Urban and Environmental Planning like she planned to or did she switch like everyone thought she would? She hasn’t talked to her in, God, almost seven years? It feels longer, everything seems to be so long ago whether they happened on the day the DMH got to her or ten, twenty years ago.

            Shawna bites her bottom lip, worrying it between her teeth. They’re sore and cracked, there’s a split in the corner that tastes like copper whenever she licks her lips. Her whole body is sore, a different kind of ache than in her teeth, it’s more like how she use to feel during the first week of track season when her body had gotten use to lazing around. Her muscle like to twitch and cramp up randomly and all she can do is bite her tongue and ride out the pain.

            What did she do to deserve this? Yeah, she’s done one or two bad things in her life—ranging from swiping a cookie from the cookie jar even after her mom said no to trying to steal a kidney for her dad and accidently injuring the surgeon who was in the room—but she’s pretty sure none of that warranted the kind of things being done to her here, in this hell hole.

            She vaguely wonders if the other people here are just as semi-innocent as her. She’s only aware of a few people trapped here with her, but she’s pretty sure there’s more than five she’s fought. Even the Flash— _Barry_ , which is absolutely adorable. It’s such a dorky name and she kind of wishes she knew the real Barry if anything she’s learned from their fights before the DMH and during indicates any good things—despite the injuries he’s caused her, she knows the reason he fights, why he hurts, and she can see the pain it causes him, how broken he looks each time they fight. He’s was a hero, still probably is.

            She can count on one hand the person who looks the least broken up about beating people up and she never wants to see Tony Woodward ever again. Bette and Kendra are way too nice and sometimes she’s wishes her mom stayed in London like she’d planned to, because they she’d be out of the DMH’s grip and Shawna wouldn’t have to worry about her, because fighting Bette and Kendra and Barry is absolute hell and she’s so tired of broken bones and fire in her veins—like being struck by lightning.

            Electricity and lightning are so different and she wants neither in her bones, in her soul, any more. Her hair is in a permanent state of frizz and she wishes, just wishes, that frizzy hair is the worst thing she has to worry about, but _noooooo—_

            She misses her Mama. Shawna chokes on the thought, tears slipping down her cheeks. Oh God, oh God, she misses her Mama. There’s no one else waiting for her on the other side, no one waiting for her on the side of freedom—but she can’t even guarantee her mom’s waiting for her either. God, she’s been such an _awful_ daughter. She’s dropped off the grid so many times, leaving her mom for months without a word, her mom is probably thinking this is one of those times, and while she’s worried, she’s not going to come looking for her.

            Shawna sobs. _Just this once_ , she thinks _, just this once please look for me_. _Please. Please. I don’t want to die here._

            She’s going to die here.

            There’s no other way around it.

            Better her than her mom.

Her Mama doesn’t deserve to die for Shawna’s selfish reasons. If this is what it takes to keep her only family safe, she better damn well do it.

She just so _tired_. So tired of living every day in fear and pain, thinking _this is it, this is the day I die_. She’s tired of being forced to use her powers for their amusement, she’s tired of hurting and being hurt by people in the same situation as her. She’s tired of seeing her pain mirrored in the expressions of the people trapped here with her. She’s so, so tired.

If only she could go back to the start, in that hallway with Jackson and Amalia, this time she’d knee him in the balls for what he did. It’s a nicer thought than being here.

“Please let me out,” she whispers, her voice cracking. “Please, please.”

_I’ll do what ever you want, just let me out._

The words are on the tip of her tongue, but she swallows them. No, no, she hasn’t reached that point yet. _She hasn’t_.

She’ll never reach that point.

Hopefully.

[…]

Run. Run. Run. One foot in front of the other. He never thought he’d reach the day where he’d be so fucking _tired_ of running.

            His chest is tight and there’s a stitch somewhere in his left side, his right calf is starting to cramp, but he keeps running. He’s slow today, 300 mph, and he still has no idea how they rigged the treadmill to go fast enough to keep up with him.

            How long has he been running? It feels like forever. Um, two hours? Four hours? Ten minutes? His stomach is hollow, aching, his heart is going to beat out of his chest. His mouth is dry, his throat hurts. Every inch of him is agony.

            But he keeps running.

            [“ _Run, Barry. Run_.”]

            Until he doesn’t.

            He doesn’t move is foot properly _one time_ and his ankle gives out on him. It happens in slow motion—his knee drops against the treadmill first, still moving at 300 miles per hour, probably dropping to 250 in just a split second, but it’s still fast enough that as soon as his knee hits he goes careening off the treadmill in a mess of limbs to crash into the wall with a sickeningly solid _whack!_

Barry gasps, crumbling to the ground, all the air knocked from his lungs. He wheezes desperately for a breath, his chest burning, his eyes stinging. Air. Air. _He needs air._

            “ _Mr. Allen, please get up_.”

            No, no, no. He ignores the voice—the buzz of static almost too much—and continues to lay there, gasp-gasping. He wants to curl up in a ball, but his limbs refuse to listen.

            “ _Mr. Allen_ ,” the voice says again, impatient. “Flash _—._ ” Barry whimpers. “ _Don’t make me ask you a third time. Your father is currently in solitary confinement; we have five guards in the immediate vicinity on our payroll. Iris West and Eddie Thawne are currently on the B-Line to Star City. It would be a shame if their train derails—not only killing them but the hundreds of innocent people on the same line. Don’t be selfish, Mr. Allen_.”

            Leave him here to die, please, please, _pleaseplease_.

            But no—not his family. Not those innocents.

            “ _Mr. Allen_.”

Barry groans.

He heaves himself up on shaky arms, dropping once before he manages to catch himself. He trips over his feet, but doesn’t fall—he _can’t_ fall—and gets to the treadmill without further injury. His chest shifts unnaturally, his ribs screaming in protest. Broken, cracked, something. _Pain._

“ _Good boy_.” But then, fainter. “ _I told you it would work_.”

“ _He fought us before even with the threats_.”

“ _It’s Bivolo, it has to be. Told you it was a good idea to keep that one_.”

One foot on the treadmill, then another. God, his feet hurt. Barry doesn’t even bother trying to suppress the sob wanting to rip from his chest. His has tremble as they grab onto the railings and he heaves to help him further up the contraption that’s become one of many banes of his existence. The slowly healing skin on his knuckles split, blood dripping between his fingers.

There’s a whirling sound and the treadmill starts up again, slowly, slowly, slowly, then 100 mph, 200 mph, 300 mph. It jumps up to 350 mph and Barry’s struggling to keep up.

It’s too fast.

_It’s too fast._

[…]

Science is a passion.

            Caitlin Snow doesn’t look like the kind of woman that science—specifically bioengineering and genetics—would be a passion for, but it is. The best part is that there’s always something new to learn and whatever looks boring to most people is actually quite exciting to her.

            Except right now. She never thought she’d ever find science boring, but here she is, bored to tears.

            There’s not really much to her job here at Cadmus. Despite her credentials—even though she left STAR Labs a little bit before the Particle Accelerator exploded then was rebuilt she still had an impressive résumé—they stuck her with _lab_ work, looking for blood types and genetic markers in whatever samples they sent her. They don’t tell her where they’re from or what they are for, she’s just suppose to compare them to a base blood sample and mark for any comparisons.

            So far there’s nothing and after two mind-numbing months of this, she’s ready to go to Star City and kick Oliver Queen’s ass for assigning this particular part of the whole thing. Or she might just ice his feet to the ground and leave him there for a few hours to stew.

            She misses Ronnie, she misses her apartment, she misses her dog. Hell, she misses her teaching position at Central City College for the Sciences. It’s a step down from STAR Labs, but she loves teaching young mind and seeing their face light up with knowledge. Hopefully they’re taking her excuse of family emergency/vacation for truth and no one tries to fire her.

            “Dr. Snow, I have another sample for you.”

            Caitlin sighs and turns around, only for the weight on her shoulders to lighten when she catches sight of Roy. “Roy! Long time.”

            “I saw you yesterday,” he points out dryly, but he’s smiling as he sets down the box with more blood samples. He hands her the tablet to sign and she does with a flourish.

            “Yes, but here that feels like weeks. It’s nice to see a familiar face.” They’re not suppose to have known each other before they started ‘working’ here, and, really, they didn’t actually, but their friendship struck quickly in mutual dislike for Cadmus. “Have you seen Patty lately?”

            While she gets to play with blood samples, Roy is a Cadmus courier and Patty is one of many security guards in the building. She kind of wishes she was one of the two right now, especially when she sees she has nineteen new samples.

            “Yeah, I saw her the other day, she said she was planning on meeting some old friends tomorrow.” It’s not a very subtle hint, but that’s all they have. They’re not _spies_ or soldiers. Roy is closest one out of the three of them, but even then…

            Caitlin sorts of the samples by ID number, lining them up with the proper paperwork for ease of use. Ten subjects, two of all but one. Barry Allen’s. It’s kind of obvious, even before she ever analyzed it the first time. It was either going to be Barry’s or Bette’s, but it ended up being Barry’s. They have been in the DMH custody the longest, they must have something special about them that the DMH wants. Something important to them.

            “I’ll see you later, yeah?” Roy says, startling her out of her thoughts.

            “Oh, yeah. Sorry. I didn’t—.”

            He laughs and waves away her apologies. “No, I get it. I’ve hung around the genius type. You’ve got a storm up in your head, whirling around.” He gives her a jaunty salute and heads off, tucking his tablet under his arm.  

            Caitlin’s already distracted by her samples. She likes Roy, a lot, but nothing beats science, nothing beats trying to find a way to save their friends and whoever might be with them—finding them _with_ science is just icing on the cake.

            She goes through Barry’s blood first, noticing markers that weren’t there before. She writes them down before going to the other blood samples. It’s the same case as last time, the same markers in Barry’s blood—minus the new ones—are in the other samples as well, increasing from one sample to the next. Their transfusions…but what are they accomplishing? What are they _trying_ to accomplish? Without the files all she gets is this— _nothing._

She can only guess at what they’re trying to do. While Barry’s speed is amazing, what comes with it is even better. From what Iris and Eddie have told her, his metabolism has increased astronomically, but so has his healing factor. He can heal a broken bone in mere hours. Imagine adding something like that to powers like Bette’s. Someone who can make a bomb and heal in seconds if something happens. Someone you could keep close to the explosion to make it worse, but be sure she comes out of it mostly intact.

            Jesus Christ. The applications of bad that just _screams_ of.

            Caitlin has to stop for a moment and just _breathe._ Oh God—she can’t, she can’t imagine the pain these people are going through, she has to admit she doesn’t _want_ to. Everyday she’s thankful they don’t have instant ways to check for the metagene.

            Her phone buzzes on the lab table and she snatches it up gratefully. Cisco’s picture flashes at her and she answers it, her heart high in her throat. _Please don’t be bad news._

            “Cisco?”

            “Caitlin.” His voice is thick with tears, heavy in shock. “Caitlin,” he breathes. “You’re not going to—we’re going to show everyone tomorrow at the meeting, but—Oh God, Cait.”

            “What is it?” she demands, tears stinging her eyes. She closes them, wiling them not to fall. “Cisco—.”

            “There’s videos,” he chokes out. “We got through the firewall on one of the servers. There’s goddamn videos.”


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ANNA! I'M SO SORRY IT'S THREE DAYS LATE. YOU ARE A WONDERFUL PERSON AND I LOVE YOU SO MUCH. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

_09.15_

            Its time stamped only a few hours ago.

            Richie slides up his glasses and glances at the time in the corner of the monitor. Noon. 12.00. Yeah, only a few hours ago. How sickening is that? He finds this yesterday and yet there’s already two new videos uploaded into the archive. Videos _no one_ has seen before, unlike the videos labeled _hw.023.1925.09.07_ and _hw.g.003.1830.09.07_. Those ones he’s seen, Cisco, Felicity, Ray, Oliver, they’ve seen those two. They couldn’t stomach going further. Not even Oliver Queen could stomach going further.

            Girder and one other. Two more confirmed metahumans.

            These ones—these new ones are labeled _pp.022.0915.10.07_ and _f.155.0800.10.07._

            Reasoning puts ‘g’ meaning Girder. ‘f’ could only mean the Flash. Who knows what ‘pp’ and ‘hw’ stand for.

            So, a total of six confirmed metahumans, one potential. Seven.

            Awesome, not awesome.

            Virgil grabs his shoulder, squeezing tight in comfort. Richie resists the urge to lean against him for only a moment before he gives in, sagging against him, closing his eyes as they begin to burn from staring at the screen too long in the dimly lit Arrow Cave— _foundry._

He’s going to have to admit…he doesn’t want to be here. As soon as he found the video archive he wanted to nope out of here so fast, but years of doing on the sly superhero work kept him in his seat and reaching for his phone. Some of those people in DMH custody might be criminals—granted Lisa Snart is the only confirmed criminal—but no one deserves government custody. They had to deal with Alva Tech getting their hands on some Bang Babies and that was almost too much, he can’t imagine government backing.

            “You’ve already seen two videos,” Virgil says quietly as Tommy, Alanna, and Thea walk in. “No one will blame you if you want to step out.”

            Richie shakes his head. “No, I’ll stay.” Doesn’t mean he’ll watch, but he’ll stay. Over the last few weeks he’s gotten to know Ronnie, and through him Bette Sans Souci, and through people’s reactions to learning Barry Allen is the Flash—he doesn’t want to leave them to this fate. They’re not his friends, they’re not his family, but he has to try and help anyway.

            They’re superheroes, after all.

            “There’s so much shit wrong with the world right now,” Alanna says. “And I still get outrageously pissed when they get my order wrong at Starbucks. How messed up is that?”

            Tommy snorts. “First World problems.”

            They’re still missing Iris, Eddie, and the group from Cadmus—Patty, Roy, and Caitlin—they can’t do anything until they arrive in…twenty minutes.

            “Any word on Snart and Rory?” Ray asks.

            Richie leans back to watch the proceedings upside down, just in time to see Oliver shake his head and say: “They refuse to come back unless we have a location. I think they’re in Keystone, hunting down their own leads.”

            Virgil shudders. “I hate to think how literal that ‘hunting down’ part is.”

            At around one that door bangs open again and their missing crew members make their way down the metal stairs. (they really need to come up with a better name for them, crew just sound weird). Caitlin’s face is paler than normal, but she breaks out in a blindingly bright smile at the sight of her husband, rushing down the last few steps to hug him tightly. Roy and Thea nearly land on the floor in their collision with each other.

            “This was probably the worst idea you ever had, Oliver,” Thea says, slightly muffled with her face pressed against Roy’s shoulder and all. “Absolute worst.”

            “Shush, Thea,” Oliver says mildly. “Now that we’re all here, minus our friends with the League of Assassins. Caitlin has news for us before we get to the nitty gritty.”

            All attention turns to the unfortunate Cadmus employee. She flushes slightly. “I think they’re trying to find a way to transfer Barry’s accelerated healing to other metahumans,” she says. “I’m finding markers I originally only found in his blood now in several other’s blood. I can confirm there’s eight metahumans in their custody and two potentials.”

            “Is it working?” Patty asks. “The transfusions, are they working?”

            Caitlin can only shrug. “I can’t tell. The markers are there, but power-bleed is something blood won’t tell me. That kind of information isn’t in any of the files we’ve dug up so far.”

            Oliver shoots Richie a look and the blonde pulls up the archives again. It takes him a moment to find the strength to talk. “I found a video archive yesterday at Stagg. They’re—they’re experimenting on them….and making them fight each other.”

            There’s a few gasps around the room, a few lovely swears—several different languages too. He keeps his eyes trained on Iris and Eddie, two people who already look like they’re about to be blown down by an easy breeze only to somehow look worse when they digest what he’s said.

            “Like God damn animals,” Dig mutters. “That’s disgusting.”

            “We’re…we’re not watching the videos, are we?” Iris whispers. She clutching Eddie’s arm like if she lets go she’s going to be swept away.

            Lyla puts a comforting hand on her shoulder. “You don’t need to,” she insists softly. “We can go out to lunch, come back when Laurel says we’re good.”

            She shakes her head and squares her shoulders. “No. Are we going to watch them?”

            “We’ve already seen two of them,” Ray says. “Two more were posted so far today.”

 

> _[[ARRANGE BY [DATE CREATED]]]_
> 
> **pp.042.0915.10.07**
> 
> **f.155.0800.10.07**
> 
> hw.023.1925.09.07
> 
> hw.g.003.1830.09.07
> 
> **pb.052.1755.09.07**
> 
> **ww.025.1736.09.07**
> 
> **pb.ww.1730.09.07**
> 
> **p.101.1001.09.07**
> 
> **f.154.0609.09.07**
> 
> **rr.f.005.0013.09.07.ys**
> 
> _[[MORE]]_

                Richie clicks pp.042.0915.10.07 first, he can already guess who stars the second one and he doesn’t want to subject these people to seeing a person most of them know being tortured. Before the video loads completely he swipes it up to the big screen, the HD is going to make it all even worse, but it keeps people from having to gather around the tiny-not-actually-that-tiny monitor.

                The timestamp still says 0915, in the top left corner of the video, and in the center lays a pale man, his eyes squeezed shut and alone, muttering things under his breath that the microphone can’t pick up. The room he’s in is grey and concrete, steel tables on the edge of the feed, a wall off to the side with a steel door.

                Cisco swears loudly and slams his hand on a table. “That’s Hartley Rathaway. Dios mío. He’s dick, but he doesn’t deserve _this_.”

                “I think I’m going to be sick,” Caitlin mutters.

                The newly named Hartley Rathaway (why does that name sound so familiar?) is thin, way too thin for what his height looks like it is, his face hollow, his collarbones prominent. His arms are strapped farther away from his body, another strap around his chest, his waist, each thigh and ankle.  If he wanted to, he could never get away, couldn’t even move.

                His cheeks are shiny with tears. Richie covers his mouth at the sight, his stomach rolling.

                _‘Let me go, please_ ,’ Hartley says desperately, a sob in this voice. He’s tugging at the straps now, not getting anywhere. He’s obviously talking to someone out of frame, his head turned towards whomever. ‘ _Please.’_

_‘Pied Piper_ ,’ a voice says. A woman in a lab coat steps into frame, her eyes on a tablet in her hands. _‘Tell me, how do your powers work? We’ve tried your ears; we’ve tried your brain. Is it your hands? Your arms?’_

Hartley sobs harder, choking on his tears.

                “I don’t want to watch this,” Caitlin. “Ronnie, I don’t want to watch this.”

                The woman in the video puts her tablet down and snags a rolling table with tools on it. She sits down on a stool and gently pulls on Hartley’s arm. A slab of metal detaches and on a hinge swings out to her, level. His hand curls into a fist then relaxes, curls, relaxes.

                _‘Please, don’t.’_

                She ignores him and grabs a scalpel, holding it like a professional. _‘As you know, Piper, this is going to hurt. Enjoy.’_

                Felicity screams, half-choked, half-whimper, when Hartley does as the doctor-scientist-woman-person- _devil_ drags the scalpel down Hartley’s arm. Richie rolls his chair back, wrapping an arm around his stomach. She’s…she’s dissecting him, like what Richie did to a cat back in biology class during his first semester.

                A _dead_ cat.

                _Hartley isn’t dead._

                The doctor-scientist-woman-person-devil goes from Hartley’s inner elbow to his wrist, dragging the scalpel over three times before putting it aside for a pair of heavy-duty tweezers. She grips one side of the cut and _pulls,_ using scissors to cut at the pieces connecting the skin to tendon, and _peels_ —

                “ _Turn it off!_ ” Roy roars. “Turn that _fucking_ thing off!”

                Someone hits the space bar—it’s definitely not Richie, no, no, his hands are shaking too much even with Virgil trying to keep him steady—and the video stops mid-scream.  

                _God_. Three videos of this has him breaking down. He can’t _imagine_ what it’s like for the people on the other side of the camera.

                “We didn’t even _know_ ,” Cisco hisses, distressed and pissed off. “He dropped off the map before the Accelerator went online. He wouldn’t answer my calls or my texts. _No one knew he was missing_.”

                “Well, now we know,” Laurel says firmly, stepping closer. “We know and we’re not going to let him stay there for too much longer. He might not know people are looking for him, but he’s not going to get left behind.”

                “He had a pet,” Ronnie murmurs. “A rat. He loved that thing more than anything in the world.” He’s talking to himself, but can’t seem to want to keep it quiet. “What happened to it?” He looks up. “We need to find out. If we’re getting Hartley out too, he needs something to come back to.”

                “We will,” Felicity assures. “Just…what’s his old address? We can get someone to ask the landlord about it? You know—.”

                The computer _pings!_ and Richie turns around to see a new video loaded up in the archive.

 

> _[[ARRANGE BY [DATE CREATED]]]_
> 
> **f.156.1323.10.07**
> 
> pp.042.0915.10.07
> 
> **f.155.0800.10.07**
> 
> hw.023.1925.09.07
> 
> hw.g.003.1830.09.07
> 
> **pb.052.1755.09.07**
> 
> **ww.025.1736.09.07**
> 
> **pb.ww.1730.09.07**
> 
> **p.101.1001.09.07**
> 
> **f.154.0609.09.07**
> 
> _[[MORE]]_

He closes his eyes in despair. Another Flash one—another Barry Allen one. He’d scrolled through most of the video codes when he found them and there had been a distressing number of them with the letter ‘f’ in them.

            Hartley getting dissected. A woman with wings having feathers plucked and her shoulder blades poked and prodded _under her skin_. Girder with a shattered shoulder, slowing being manipulated through the pain.

            “’F’ is for Flash, isn’t it?”

            He jumps at the sudden voice near his ear. His back cracks as he twists to see Eddie leaning over, his eyes bright with some kind of emotion—or _power_ , a voice in his head says, _he’s got power, don’t forget_ —and his lips pulled in a sever frown. “W-What?”

            Eddie points at the screen, his nail hitting the ‘f’ in f.156.1323.10.07. “That’s Barry,” he says, voice firm. “They just finished up torturing him, didn’t they? One-twenty-three in the afternoon on July tenth. While we’re standing here, watching videos of people getting tortured from this morning, he was being tortured just minutes ago.” There’s something in his voice now, something shaking, something angry. “And there’s another one. Eight o’clock this morning.” His hand finds Richie’s shoulder, squeezing tightly. “What do the first numbers mean?”

            He swallows. “I don’t know yet.” But he has a sinking feeling. He takes a deep breath. “Do…do you want to watch it?”

            Eddie freezes, his eyes on the screen, flickering to the corner where a double-feed of Hartley’s experiment is still sitting there, paused. “Do I want to watch it?” he echoes. “I don’t think so. I don’t want to watch it.” His breath catches. “I don’t.” His hands shake. “But this means he’s alive?”

            Richie knows he’s not actually asking him, but he answers anyway. “Yes. Yeah, he’s alive.” He throws as much hope and joy into his voice as possible. The man’s boyfriend is alive!

            Except tears are trailing down his cheeks and he closes his abnormally blue eyes. “Damn it,” he whispers. “ _Damn it_.”

[…]

These damn meetings. They’re such a waste of time, especially when he has better things to do than listen to Simon Stagg drone on and on about whatever the fuck.

Eobard wishes he killed him when he had the chance, when Dalton Black was terrorizing him and the Flash stopped him. That’s probably when the man learned Barry Allen’s name, but by the time Eobard put it together, Simon had already contacted Wade Eiling from the army and Victoria Hardwick from Cadmus into his little Department of Metahuman Hostilities. Really, all Eobard could do was hold on for the ride when Simon eventually contacted him about it.

Barry Allen still isn’t fast enough to connect to the Speedforce, which means Eobard is still not fast enough to do a damn thing.

“We really need to find a better way to control the Flash,” Malcolm comments. He sounds bored, but he always sounds bored. It’s interesting to see him in this light, as the bad guy. The holo-bios didn’t give much on Malcolm Merlyn as the Dark Archer, there hadn’t been much record of it, it had mostly been Malcolm Merlyn, CEO of Merlyn Global, until he was revealed to be the Dark Archer and killed by the Green Arrow three years into said colorful hero’s vigilante days. Here, Eobard guesses the masses weren’t as lucky.

“We’re doing fine,” Victoria says. “The Y-S and R-S treatments are doing their job.”

Malcolm scoffs. “Meaning every time he acts up we threaten to kill his father or his girlfriend or his boyfriend? If we had better control we wouldn’t have to threaten anyone.”

Eobard groans inwardly. Never in a timeline before has his ancestor and Barry Allen been in a relationship and he’s finding it quite annoying that they are now. He can’t, with good logic, persuade them not to threaten Eddie Thawne’s life, but if that man dies, then good-bye Eobard.

Just the thought of it gives him a headache.

And he’s developing a twitch in his eye.

He rubs the offending spot, finally just resting his elbow on the table and pressing the heel of his palm against his eye. Every fucking time.

“I could fix that,” Wade says gleefully. “If you’d just let me—.”

“No,” Moira says, sounding as annoyed as Eobard feels. “We won’t let you. If we let you take control you’ll end up just killing them, we want them alive, don’t we?”

“Hartley Rathaway healed from Dr. Violet’s examination of his arms in half the time it would normally take him,” Victoria says. “The blood transfusions from Mr. Allen to the rest of the metahumans are working. Slower than I’d like, but they are, indeed, working.”

“The continuous experiments of Bivolo’s powers on Allen are working as well,” Simon goes on to say. “The boy’s mental ability to fight back is breaking. A few more tests between the two of them and I think we have ourselves a pretty little attack dog. We can round up more metahumans that way. I have a few suspected ones on my list.”

Eobard perks up at that. “Oh, like who?”

“The one who calls himself _Vibe_ ,” he answers. “And a Killer Frost. Static and Gear from Dakota City haven’t been seen for a while, but when they come out of hiding, I’d like them as well.”

He can feel the twitch starting back up.

“Can we nail down the complications with the metahuman blood first?” Victoria says, annoyed. It’s a standard state of mind when they all get together. Him, Malcolm Merlyn, Victoria Hardwick, Simon Stagg, Moira Queen—Hunter is the only one missing, but that’s due to him being at the compound most days anyway.

In another timeline this could have all been different.

But until Barry Allen gains his connection—the slowest spark he’s _ever_ seen—he can’t go back and try again.

“What complications? You said it was working,” Moira says. Her attention is more on the tablet in hand than it is on the conversation, but Eobard can’t find himself to fault her for that.

Victoria sniffs primly. “It _is._ But the other metahumans were suppose to get the Flash’s speed as well, not just his healing. I want fast, healing soldiers. The treatments of the Y-S and R-S are slow going, but if we get Sans Souci in working order with her bomb, the Flash’s speed and healing, she was already a solider once—.”

“One that tried to go AWOL when she got her powers,” Eiling reminds her. “She’s always been hardheaded. I say we start her off with the RR treatments too. Get the bitch on a level she deserves to be at.”

“You,” Moira says, her glare leveled at the General instead of her tablet now, “are an awful person, Eiling.” She blinks, frowns, then goes back to whatever fascinating thing that’s so distracting. “No. We keep the treatments up with Barry Allen. His accelerated healing is 20 times whatever we’ll get with the others. If we can break him, control him, with the RR treatments, then it only stands we can do the same with the others in half the time.”

“You just like seeing the Flash crying,” Simon teases, sounding entirely too giddy for Eobard’s tastes.

Yes, yes, he would love to see Barry Allen broken, beaten, begging for his life, crying and sobbing. But that’s only at his hands. _He_ alone deserves the chance to ruin Barry Allen—he alone deserves the privilege of enjoying his pain. If Moira or anyone else in this little club thinks they can just take what is his, they have another think coming.

Moria scoffs. “You’re disgusting Stagg. All I’m here for is the advancement in metahuman containment. I don’t care about any of your experiments. Though, it amounts to torture a lot of the time. Dr. Violet didn’t give Rathaway any sedatives for her experiment, did she?” She doesn’t wait for an answer before she continues with, “They’re just kids. I’ve known Hartley since he was a toddler.”

“Cry me a river,” Victor snaps. “If you’re suck a bleeding heart, Queen, why don’t you take a walk?”

“Now, now, children,” Eobard speaks up.

“Oh, so you _can_ talk,” Malcolm sneers. His cold, unflappable demeanor fading quickly. “What is it this time, Harrison?”

Eobard adjusts his glasses. “It seems to me we have a few differing opinions,” he says steadily. “I’m surprised we didn’t figure that out sooner—oh wait, we _did_.” He carefully forms a scowl, going for annoyance and disappointment. It’s not hard to do, it’s just micro-expressions, something he learned to do when he was a child centuries into the future. “We’ve established that none of us are top-dog in our little clubhouse so could we not snap at each other as if we’ve gone mad?”

Moira eyes him thoughtfully. There’s something cold and calculating in her eye. The holo-bios didn’t really give another on her either, the mother of the great Green Arrow, of the fantastic Speedy. Grandmother to the Legacy hero Connor Hawke, who became the second Green Arrow. She was a side-character, a foot-note in the life of Oliver Queen, Thea Merlyn (who was a Queen from the holo-bios, he can’t tell what changed it). She was a woman who died quietly in her bed, surrounded by loved ones. She was not a woman who was stuffed in a fridge, but a woman who ran a multi-billion-dollar company along side her son until she retired—but was still over shadowed by the superheroes in her life.

Eobard never thought he’d be the voice of reason.

He hates it.

_God damn it, his eye won’t stop twitching._

[…]

            Patty finds them tucked away from everyone else—big surprise. She sighs when she catches sight of them, pressing her hand to her cheek. They look so _sad_ , so defeated, curled up with each other, a table in Eddie’s lap. There’s an arrow scored on the back of it, only ever faintly there, but it tells her it’s one of three tablets hooked up to the foundry’s system and it goes into self-destruct mode if taken three feet past the perimeter.

            She remembers them back when she was a CSI with Barry at the CCPD—while Eddie stayed on payroll when the building went bye-bye and the CCPD moved temporarily to City Hall, Patty went off to join the Star City Police. She doesn’t regret leaving, she _doesn’t_ , she _swears_. But then she looks at Eddie and Iris, people she called friends, and that guilt worms its way into her chest.

            She should’ve stayed. Barry had been one of her best friends after she joined the force, second only to the desk sergeant who she knew back at the academy. She watched Eddie show up, watched the three of them dance around each other, spent many nights eating ice cream with Barry as he thoroughly freaked out and made himself a nervous wreck about them. She was there when Eddie was in Gotham and Iris was in Metropolis and Barry showed up at her apartment out of _fucking nowhere_ , dressed in red and a bullet in his shoulder.

            _She should’ve stayed._

            They don’t notice her arriving, which goes to show more of their mental state than just basing it off how they look, and she peers over to see the screen. Patty sighs again when she sees the video archive.

 

> _[[ARRANGE BY [[NAME]]]_
> 
> _[FIND **[__f.__]** ]]_
> 
> **f.156.1323.10.07**
> 
> **f.155.0800.10.07**
> 
> **f.154.0609.09.07**
> 
> **rr.f.005.0013.09.07.ys**
> 
> **ww.f.010.1415.08.07**
> 
> **f.153.1234.08.07**
> 
> **p.f.0945.07.07**
> 
> **f.153.0015.07.07**
> 
> **hw.f.006.1555.06.07**
> 
> **pp.f.011.1633.06.07**
> 
> _[[MORE]]_

“You’re not going to watch, are you?” she says.

                They both startle badly, Iris nearly smacking her head on Eddie’s chin. He clutches the tablet close to his chest, like he things she’s going to snatch it from her.

                Patty smiles at them softly. “Sorry,” she offers. Neither of them reply so she gestures at the tablet. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

                Iris’ lips press into a thin line. “Why not?”

                She doesn’t even answer, just lets the silence do the talking for her. Her heart is a drum in her chest, her hands sweaty. There’s a look, not a very nice one, in their eyes that has her want to simultaneously pull them into a hug and step as far away from them as possible.

                It’s not something that can be described as _dead_ …

                The silence stretches on for longer than comfortable.

                “Barry wouldn’t want you to,” Patty finally blurts out. Eddie’s breathing hitches, sharp and painful. “When we get them back—When Barry comes home.” She takes a deep breath. “He’d be devastated to know you watched them. He wouldn’t want you to suffer through watching them hurt him.”

                —Crap, that last part…They had been responding so nicely to her words, the harsh line in Iris’ shoulders loosening, Eddie’s grip on the tablet growing lax. Until she said that last bit.

                Barry’s being tortured, suffering, and they can’t do a damn thing about it’s only fair they attempt to suffer with him. It’s faulty logic—horrible, terrible, damaging logic—but Patty gets where they’re coming from. If there were tapes of Mark Mardon killing her dad, she’d watch them.

                (There’s a punchline somewhere to the sick, sick joke that is Mark Mardon getting superpowers, Mark Mardon being captured, Mark Mardon being tortured—and now her mission is to save him and keep him from being damaged further. She tries not to think too much about it most of the time.)

                “Guys,” she tries before she realizes, no, there’s no point. They’re not listening anymore.

                Were they ever listening?

                “Patty,” Thea hisses from a few feet behind her. “Come on.”

                She hesitates for the briefest moments—Eddie puts the tablet back on his lap, Iris curls close again—before she turns heel and walks away. Her shoulders creep to her ears with each step, but she doesn’t…

                Patty doesn’t make it far enough before the first scream comes from the tablet.

[…]

                No one wants to look at the videos again. They have their codenames to search for some of the metahuman’s true names in the files they’ve managed to gather, but no one wants to watch any of those damnable videos ever again.

                It’s not until a month later that Cisco bothers pulling at the line again, the string that connects them to Stagg Industries and that archive.

                He gags at the sight of dozen—no, no, _hundreds_ of more videos loaded up. Barry’s numbers ticking to the 200’s. Yeah, he knows what those numbers mean. Cisco’s been counting the days and it just makes it worse.

                _189 days and counting_.

                Since Bette, since Barry.

                Her number is at 150. God damn 150.

 

> **|__**
> 
> [UPLOAD PENDING. . . ]
> 
> **f.216.1230.09.08**
> 
> **p.f.018.1015.09.08**
> 
> **p.150.950.09.08**
> 
> **f.215.0745.09.08**
> 
> **|__**

Hartley is up in the 60’s now.

                _You’re no closer to finding any of your friends._

_Bette. Barry. Hartley._

_You’re_ failing.

                The day they found the videos was the day everything went to shit. For the most part everyone’s back into their roles, but there’s an underlying desperation, a thrum of panic and despair that Cisco can taste on his tongue, feel in his bones like vibrations of the universe. Iris and Eddie. Patty. Felicity. Oliver. Dig. The day they found the videos is the day they got a little darker, their vibes got a little deeper, somber. Caitlin’s on edge, Ronnie looks murderous, sounds murderous whenever they talk. Richie and Virgil look less inclined in helping them now that they know what’s going on.

                They’re all _breaking._

                He forces himself to look away from the links, gaze flickering one more time to the screen only to find a black window pulled up, a green cursor blinking merrily at him. He swears at the sight, yanking himself closer to the desk.

                No, no, no, nonono, they can’t be hacked back. That’s not how this is suppose to work. They’re only suppose to run into actual retaliation when they storm the castle, not now when they’re gathering information.

                _No._

…The cursor just sits there, blinking.

                Cisco stares at it, confused. Now that he thinks about it—why is there a blank window with a cursor? That’s not…standard hacking. And it’s not doing anything, just sitting there.

                He reaches out, pressing his fingers lightly on the keys, his heart hammering in his chest. He could…

 

> ||VIBE. . .||
> 
> ||THEYRE WAITING. . .||
> 
> ||37.7401N/92.1263W||

His eyes widen. “Holy shit.” He punches in the coordinates and pumps a fist in the hair. “ _Holy shit_! We got them! We fucking got them!”

_Please don’t be a trap._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter? Ooooohhhh boy.  
> (by the way, I recommend googling those coordinates at the end and think long and hard about why that place that comes up sounds so familiar. And then die of the feels)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger Warning: Suicide

There’s blood in her hair.

_Her_ blood _._

Lisa picks it out carefully with trembling, throbbing fingers. There’s blood on her hands too, dried and flaking. On her face, her neck, her clothes. Everywhere. She suppresses a sob, closing her eyes for a moment to compose herself. There’s no cameras to see her lose her composure, but she’s not sure she can handle breaking down right now.

If there’s anything she’s learned over the years is that you shouldn’t show weakness. If there’s the slightest chance someone could see her cry, then she’s weak. _Weak._ One of the many lessons she was never allowed to forget. Be faster. Be smarter. Be stronger.

The rat’s nest that is her hair makes it hard to get out the clumps. Lisa gives up, her hands dropping limply to her lap, clasped together, nails at he knuckles, even though it hurts like fucking hell for them to be touching anything at all. Her left pinky and ring finger are twisted in an awkward, painful angle. Broken, almost completely healed. They kept her for two weeks to test out their freaky transfusions thing. She’s not sure _what_ they were putting in her body, but it fucking _burned_. Burned and burned, ice hot fire in her veins.

            A sharp burst of pain sprouts from her knuckles. Lisa hisses and swipes the pad of her thumb over the newly bleeding spot. Another scab to add to her collection then. She should probably bite down her nails if she’s going to keep scratching herself without her even knowing. Which is a shame, she’s always liked having long, painted nails. Most of the dark bronze color is gone now, just a few pieces here and there. She doesn’t want to chip it all the way off, it’s a nice reminder of when she could pamper herself, be _clean_.

            She squeezes her hands together, appreciating the dull pain instead of the sharpness that’s been haunting her, and stands abruptly, not even sparing it a thought. The metal collar around her neck pinches, chaffing whenever she moves in a certain direction—any direction really. But she has to move. If she doesn’t she’ll go crazy…if she isn’t there already.

            Her cell is 10 by 12 with a small bed bolted to the floor, a lavatory in the corner, and…that’s about it. There’s no cameras she can see. It’s the average size of a secondary bedroom. And entirely too small for her to pace properly. But she does anyway.

            One foot in front of the other, her heel tapping her toes with each step. She used to do this on the curb outside the skating rink she went to as a foster kid. Lenny would hold her hand to help her balance and she’d wobble on the curb. No one knew how great her big brother was in those days, he disappeared a lot, didn’t stay in contact too much, but he was still there, for her competitions, whenever the bullies got too much for even Lisa Snart—as much as she likes to boast, eight years old is still just eight years old.

            Emotions swell from her stomach to her chest, lodging in her throat and making her choke on them all. She leans against the wall, her legs suddenly too weak, her hands pressed to her face. God, she misses her brother, she misses the ice, she wants to go _home_.

            The tap, tap, tap of footsteps outside her door startles her into stillness, her hands falling from her face. She tenses, bracing herself for a fight even though she knows full well she’s gonna be shit in a fight.

            They’ve never come for her twice in one day before. Especially not after this particularly brutal session of systematic torture she’s had to endure. Especially when they _just_ finished with her only hours ago.

            “Lisa Snart.”

            The door slides open and they’re there. She can only let herself be yanked from her prison, wrists bound tightly behind her. There’s four guards this time, dressed up in their black military uniforms, non-indicative to what branch they could be apart of. She wants to say Army, just because.

            “March forward.”

            They shove her, letting her stumble and, yeah, Army, definitely.

            Across from her is a door like hers with a sign that just says ‘p.’ She glances back, curious now, to see ‘ls’ for hers. ‘rr,’ ‘hw,’ ‘pb,’ ‘pp,’ ‘g.’ She’s missing two names for the doors in the other direction, but these ones she sees. These ones she doesn’t know. How many people are trapped here with her?

            The room they bring her to is something she’s never seen before, a locker room. It looks so much like her high school’s locker room, or maybe even the rink’s locker room. The warm memories it brings almost cripples her, her knees buckling.

            “Why am I here?” she hisses.

            She’s given no answer.

            Just shoved through the door into a gym-like room. She stumbles and falls, crashing to her knees that crack and groan with the pressure. Lisa bites the inside of her cheek to keep from shouting. There are cameras lining the top of the walls, capturing everything they can.

            Lisa curls her hands into the fabric of her jogging capris, focusing on the pain. It’s the only thing that seems real anymore.

            “Why am I here?” she asks again, to her knees.

            “To fight,” a raspy whisper of a voice answers her.

            Her head jerks up, her vision wavering for a moment, and she catches sight of a man…maybe. Could be a skeleton with only just a veneer of skin with the way it’s stretched over his cheek bones, his collar bone peeking from under the ‘v’ of a shirt that probably use to fit him.

            “What?”

            He stands, swaying. “You’re here to fight me, show off your powers so they can experiment on you more.”

            Something gross settles in her stomach and she stands to match him, offering, “There’s nothing to show off, I don’t have any powers. I’m just a potential.”

            He _trips_ forward and disappears until he’s right in front of her in a blink, slamming into her. They fall to the ground in a heap of limbs, all the air rushed from her lungs. They’re face to face, fear at her throat. His eyes are impossibly green, gold flecks in the iris, static tinging the pupil.

            “Sorry,” he offers, his voice still that whispering rasp. “Lost a step somewhere in there.” He grabs her chin and tilts her head up, her neck exposed to her like a submissive dog. She has to fight the urge to take a swing at him. “Your collar’s not activated,” he breathes.

            He doesn’t sound that surprised, just matter-of-fact, just…dead inside, like he can’t be surprised anymore. He drops his hand, laying flat on the ground next to her ear.

            “You’re the Flash,” she croaks.

            The Flash cocks his head to the side, listening for something she can’t hear—or is it something that just not there?

            “Barry,” he corrects. “No Flash here.”

            ‘ _Not anymore_ ’ goes unsaid.

            “…I’m not going to fight you.” Blink. And he’s gone again—hovering back at his original spot, wringing his hands together. They’re red and swollen, covered in half-healed cracks and scrapes. “I’m not going to fight her,” he tells the cameras weakly. “That’s not… _fair_. She has no powers. You’ve never had me fight a potential before.”

            She stands, wrapping her arms around her stomach, hugging herself to hold it all in. Lisa watches the Flash— _Barry_ pace back-and-forth on a self-imposed short line. He’s limping, a twist to his knee, there’s mottled bruising on his exposed calves. He looks like how she feels. (she faintly wonders if she looks how she feel’s, but decides she doesn’t want to know the answer.)

            There’s the sound of an alarm, short and shrill, and Lisa jumps. Barry _freezes_ and growls at the corner of the room.

            “ _No_.”

            He shudders, curling his shoulder down, yanking at his hair. “No, no. I _can’t_. —You don’t have powers!” he spits at her. She takes a startled step backward.

            Lisa never fought the Flash back then. She stuck to the coasts, working her crime-magic in the cities on the beaches. She loved the sun and the water and the bikinis and the gorgeous men and women. Len liked Central City too much for her taste, liked fighting a metahuman hero way too much. All he had was a stolen gun, the Flash had super powers. Why did he think?

            But she never imagined the man under the mask—the man she saw on the news, the one Mick and Len told her stories about when she visited or they stole a moment to skype—she never imagined to see him like this. A despairing, scared animal that looks like he’s going to lose it any moment now.

            Dangerous. Unstable.

            Pacing, no matter how broken his line is, his hands in his hair.

            This is not a man.

            “I’m not going to fight you!” he continues, like he didn’t pause for an uncomfortable amount of time. One string of words into the next. “I can’t. You can’t make me.”

            The alarm sounds again and now she takes it as it means. _Fight_.

            But she doesn’t fight anyone unwilling to fight her back. It’s…un-sportsman-like. It’s too much like…like being _unable_ to fight, it’s—

            It’s in that moment, that thought, that it happens. A spark at her throat, bouncing through her nerves. She chokes, fire burning.

            It hurts. It _hurts_.

            She _drops_ , clutching at her neck, g-gasp-gasping for air. Static in her ears. Ozone on her tongue. Lunges empty. Nerves flaming.

            —and then it’s over.

            Her ears are ringing and she can’t get her arm to stop twitching, or her legs. Everything’s blurry, fuzzy on the edges. There’s hands on her shoulders, brushing against her cheeks, wiping away tears she didn’t even realize were there until that moment.

            He’s fuzzy around the edges too and it takes her too long of a moment to realize her sight is not the thing making him fuzzy. _Barry’s vibrating so fast she can see through his ears_. He’s crying too—why does that seem so weird to her?

            “You’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay—.” He looks absolutely horrified—terrified—

            Third time’s the charm for the alarm. Lisa lets out a hysterical giggle at the thought. Two points for rhyming.

            “You should punch me,” Lisa says, voice quiet, a rasp not unlike his.

            Barry’s expression twists to something pained. “I—.”

            “Aren’t you trying to protect someone out there?” she whispers, wrapping her hands around his wrists. “I am.” But Lenny can—. “Lenny can take care of himself. A whole lot better than you think, probably. Punch me.”

            The sound of distress whines high in his throat. “Y-You have no powers. I c-can’t…”

            “I think you should.”

            She doesn’t really want to think about what it will be like to be punched by a speedster. But she’s not wrong. Her brother can take care of himself (to an extent and she, unfortunately knows this, he’s only human. Why else would she actually still be semi-cooperating?). He can take care of himself for whatever the Department who try to get him with and, honestly, she has a feeling they won’t be going after Lenny at this point. Whoever this Flash loves, they’re on the list.

            And it’s already been three starting bells.

            Barry takes a deep breath, chest stuttering and halting. Now that they’re closer and their positions not as unleveled, she can see the build up of bruise and scabs and scars around his neck, she can feel the rough skin around his wrists on the pads on her hands.

            (Some people love too much, she used to think. They risk too much for love, she thinks now. Love is a weakness; she hasn’t seen it as a strength yet.)

            “Don’t hate me,” he all but begs, eyes wide and filled with tears.

            “I think you’ll be fine in that department,” Lisa says drily. She lets him pull away and take a few steps back.

            Lisa stands on shaky legs, brushing her hands uselessly down her shirt. Barry’s on the other side of the gym again. He goes back and forth between being too close and being too far.

            Lightning fritzes up and down his arm, his fingers curling into a fist. “I d-don’t—.” He takes a breath. “This is…this is going to hurt. I’m sorry—?”

            She swallows thickly. “Lisa.”

            He chokes. “Oh. Lisa. Leonard, Lisa.” He squeezes his eyes shut, shaking his head. “I’m sorry, Lisa.”

            There’s a moment where he’s there, hesitating, and the next he’s _gone_.

            Her face explodes in pain, red in her vision. Something crunches, cracks, and she’s down, down _hard_.

            And out, succumbing to darkness.  

[…]

It’s Roy who convinces them to go out. He’s not entirely sure how he managed to convince Iris and Eddie, but after a few hours locked in a hotel room with Thea and Patty they came out looking less like death and more like overly stressed mid/late-twenties people with regular, underpaid, underappreciated jobs.

            Which is a pretty awful thought, but true nonetheless.

            “You cut your hair again,” he comments, surprised. Iris’ hair now reaches the bottom of her ears instead of mid-neck like she’d been growing it out before. It’s on just this side of wild with it’s curls, it looks _really_ good.

            She tugs on one of the thicker curls near her face. “It was getting too long.”

             “It looks great,” he assures her. She gives him a small smile in return.

            Okay, maybe going out isn’t the best idea.

            There’s bags under both their eyes, Iris’ a little less noticeable and Roy knows enough that it’s probably make-up helping her out. Eddie’s beard is longer than he’s ever seen it and his clothes are a little too big for him. It’s only been a short while since they saw those dreaded videos, he should’ve waited longer before he asked them out.

            Or he shouldn’t have asked them at all, to be honest.

            But they needed _something_ to take their minds off all the bad things happening, even if it is for only a few minutes if they’re lucky.

            “Where are we going?” Patty asks. “The Verdant? Anyone else going?”

            Thea shakes her head, making a disgusted face. “No. No offense to my brothers’ admirable hobby. I’m a little tired of going there. There’s a place called Tic-Tac a couple blocks down. Smaller, less expensive. Laurel and Cisco said they’d meet us there.”

            “If this place doesn’t smell wintery fresh I’m gonna riot,” Patty says, grinning.

            Iris huffs a laugh; Eddie manages a thin smile. Sad.

            Roy sighs, feeling guilty even though he knows he shouldn’t. Thea grabs his hand, tangling their fingers together, and squeezes lightly in reassurance. She takes Patty’s hand on her other side.

            From Iris and Eddie’s hotel—this time they decided to stay for a week as a vacation to make it seem less weird they only come for a few days at a time—their new club destination is only about a thirty-minute walk. Every woman except Patty went for flats, but she went for wedge high heels and claimed they were comfortable enough to walk thirty minutes. Roy eyed the height on them and shrugged. He’s walked in higher for less time and it turned out okay.

            Five minutes in Parry launches into a rant about the latest episode of _Wonderlost_. She managed to drag Iris into a debate about the show’s use of time travel, something she knows a lot about apparently since Barry had an obsession with it for a few years even before he was the Flash.

            “I only read Barry’s blog,” Eddie admits. “By the time I knew them, he was more obsessed with ghosts and aliens….and freak weather patterns,” he adds off-handedly. “That one came up a lot.”

            “Really? Why?” Thea asks. “I know he had a few apps dedicated to weather.”

            Eddie shrugs slightly. “A lightning strike gave him his powers, when the Particle Accelerator malfunctioned and seeded a sudden major storm. His mom died in a tornado of lightning.” He presses his lips together in a thing line. “Things have…happened.”

            “Weird.”

            “Only if you don’t know…”

            Roy opens his mouth to add something to at least one of their conversations when the sharp noise of glass breaking comes from the alley way. He pauses, his hand slipping from Thea’s as the rest of the group keeps going.

            A shadow moves, vague person shaped, the silhouette too sharp, too clean to be someone homeless. The shoulders a little too squared for a citizen.

            “Thea,” he calls casually, walking until he passes the mouth of the alley. He hears footsteps behind him now, light. His girlfriend turns, raising an eyebrow. “I was wondering…” He tugs on her arm, pulling her close. “I count at least five people in the alley, coming closer.”

            She frowns. “I left my bow at home. I’ve got a gun. You?”

            “I have my knife; Patty has a gun. I don’t know about Iris and Eddie,” he whispers back, brushing his nose against her ear. She forces out a giggle, a play, a sham.

            “Hey, lovebirds!” Patty calls. They’re a few feet ahead of him and Thea, stopped, turned back toward them.

            “I counted five,” he adds. “We can take them.” Thea nods, looking smug.

            Of course, when they finally appear from the shadows, it’s not five. It’s fifteen. Fifteen soldiers dressed in black, a shiny DMH printed on their shoulders that Roy _just_ catches when a light hits them at a good angle. They have no long-range weapons. And they have them surrounded.

Five people, two guns (maybe. More if they’re lucky), and a knife.

Uh…

“Iris West. Eddie Thawne,” one of them growls, appropriately dramatic.

Eddie draws a gun, bracing himself. “What do you want?” he demands. (three guns, better chances.)

One of them laughs mockingly. “Barry fucked up.”

There’s a gunshot from somewhere. Roy misses who fires and who it hits, instead dodging two soldiers who jump him straight away. He yanks out his knife, flipping it open. It feels like a street brawl all over again. Back when he was just Roy Harper, gangbanger, wrong side of the law, instead of Arsenal, still on the wrong side of the law in the eyes of the police but still a _superhero_.

He’s a Goddamn superhero.

Roy spins into a kick to catch Mook #1 in the head, missing only to graze its ear. He lashes out against and again, catching Mook #2 in the shoulder with his knife, a lucky hit. He blinks, eyes widening. More than one of his hits should’ve, you know, actually _hit_.

They’re moving too fast to be human.

“How the hell—?” Thea shouts. “They’re moving—.”

He flips off a wall and drop kicks Mook #2, knocking it down and out for the count. That’s when he notices, just below the shine of the DMH on its chest is a little lightning bolt that looks familiar.

“ _Iris_!”

Roy whirls around, twisting past a punch that hits his cheek anyway and catches a powered knee to the gut. He doubles over, choking on a breath, the back of his collar being yanked, tightening the front. Pain spikes in the back of his knees, sending him to the ground with a painful crack. He juts out an elbow, hitting something hard, feeling ribs crack and hearing someone swear.

_CRACK!_

He bites back a scream as his ankle erupts in fiery pain, shattering until the weight of a fully grown man. Fingers dig into his scalp, yanking back until his neck is pulled fully exposed.

In the static of pain he can see why Eddie shouted Iris’ name—she’s cornered against a way, lip bleeding, a cut on cheek. Two more Mooks lay on the floor around her, but two more have her wrists pressed against the brick wall. She squirms, kicking out and missing every time as the Mooks dodge with a blur Roy’s only seen on news with the Flash.

Eddie tries to fight his way to her only for super speed to block him, sending him to the ground in a heap. They kick him to his back, planting a foot on his chest and pressing down until he gasps, heaving. There’s a crack from him too, a rib breaking under the pressure. The Mook drops to his knee, making Eddie _oomph_ at the sudden weight.

“Let them go!” Thea shouts, her hair a mess with knots and, crap, blood. She’s wobbly in her punches, a head wound.

Patty’s no better. She managed to lose the shoes, but now her feet are bloody from the sidewalk. Her gun is gone, thrown somewhere (out of bullets? Broken?), her right shoulder is a bloody mess too and she’s favoring that arm.

“What are you doing?”

Roy wrenches his gaze back to Iris. The Mooks have her purse turned upside down, emptying the contents of it to the sidewalk. One goes through her wallet, taking cash and her credit cards, shoving them into a pocket into their jacket. They’ve swiped Eddie’s wallet as well, doing the same.

Almost like…like they’re making it look like a mugging.

“Why do you have the Flash symbol on your jacket?” Roy rasps. The fingers in his hair tighten. He winces, groaning. “Like that answer. Yes, thank you, very clear.”

“Our orders were to just kill West and Thawne,” one Mook says. “There weren’t suppose to be any witnesses.”

“Then we won’t leave any,” another replies. “Go through their things. We’ll ‘mug’ them too. Kill the two first, though.”

Iris gasps then lets out a whimper, blood drops from the corner of her mouth, dripping off her chin. A knife protrudes from her stomach, just below her ribs. Then a second later, it’s ripped out. Iris screams in agony, choking. Red stains her purple dress, spreading out like ink.

“ _NO_!” Eddie shrieks. He struggles even harder against he Mook holding him down. “Iris! _Iris_!”

That’s when the screaming starts. High pitched, shattering, sending all the still standing Mooks to the ground.

And all the heroes.

The pain is blinding. Roy clutches at his head, keening, pressing his hands against his ears. Block the sound. Block the sound. Oh god. Oh god. Is this how he dies? By the Canary Cry?

It tapers off, fades into an echo until that’s gone as well.

Everything’s silent except for the muffled ringing in his ears. Roy blinks away the haze in his sight and pulls his hands away, his palms slick with blood. He wipes a finger in his ear and it comes away equally as bloody. He struggles to his knee, his ankle throbbing, his neck aching.

 Suddenly Thea’s there, her nose and ears streaming red. Her lips are moving, forming words that sound more like it’s through water than anything else. He croaks out her name, but she shakes her head, pointing at her ear. In the same boat, then.

Laurel’s helping Patty up, wiping the blood from her neck, unwrapping her scarf and tying it around Patty’s neck and arm as a sling.

Roy takes a deep breath, closing his eyes and opening them slowly, greeted to the sight of Eddie cradling Iris in his lap, cupping her cheek, rocking her slowly. Cisco’s on his knees next to them, hand hovering uselessly over the wound on her stomach.

His hearing comes back with a whimpering “ _Iris, Iris, no please_ ” from Eddie. Thea helps him up and they stumble over to the other three, Laurel and Patty on their heels. She slides him to the ground gently, still, he clenches his teeth, hissing.

“Call 911,” Patty says. “My phone is broken. They should get here soon, right?”

Laurel shakes her head, biting her lip. “I don’t think—that’s pretty bad,” she whispers. “Star City ambulances aren’t known for punctuality.” She digs out her phone. “I’ll call anyway.”

“Eddie, think,” Cisco says. “Put pressure on the wound. You have first aid training, right? It’s required for public servants.”

He shudders and moves his hand from Iris’ cheek and presses it hard on the wound. She cries out, arching a little, and Eddie sobs, curling over. “You can’t leave. What am I supposed to do without you? We promised we weren’t going to leave each other.”

Laurel moves the mouthpiece away. “Dispatch says they’re on their way. Cisco, Thea, help me move the bad guys out the way? And can someone call Felicity, Oliver, and Tommy to come get them? We can’t let the paramedics see them.”

“T-This really h-hurts,” Iris rasps out. “W-What h-happened?”

Eddie lets out a watery snort. “You got stabbed,” he says. “It’s pretty bad.”

Her hand is shaking as she brings it over his, brushing the back of his palm. “B-Bad bad?”

He nods. “Laurel…L-Laurel says h-helps not going to come in, in time.” He sobs again. “You p-promised.”

Fresh blood trickles from her mouth as she smiles slightly. “I-I k-know.” She closes her eyes, sighing. “I f-feel _warm_.”

“Iris! No!” Eddie clutches at her, his eyes on her face. “Open your eyes, please.”

Cisco gasps. “Eddie! Look at your hand!”

They all look. Roy’s heart jumps high to his throat at the sight of blue flames flickering around Eddie’s and Iris’ joined hands. He looks and Eddie’s eyes are unnaturally blue, bright like the flames burning from his hands.

It burns, but Iris’ clothes don’t go up in smoke. There is smoke coming from her, though, the inkblot of blood on her clothes, on her face, arms, all the blood bubbles and steams.

Iris whimpers, arching again, her body thrashing. A shout cuts off mid-way, her mouth open wide in a silent scream.

The scrape on her face fades to a scab until it’s nothing, not even a shiny patch of skin.

Eddie moves his hand, the flames still flickering, and the wound looks like it’s been inflicted by a pencil instead of a knife. The skin around it equally unblemished as the skin on her face. He sobs again, in relief this time.

“Thank God. Oh, thank God.”

Iris’ eyes flutter open. “W-What—?” She coughs, no fresh blood comes with it, and takes a deep breath. “E-Eddie?”

Eddie yanks her into a hug, crushing her tight against him, pressing his face against her neck. He’s laughing hysterically, his breath hitching. “G-Guess we figured out what my p-powers do.”

 

[…]

 

It takes 652 steps for Henry to go from his cell to the solitary room they like to put him in. Hands behind his back, feet chained together. He’s never caused problems for the men who guard Iron Heights, but, recently, the last five-ish months actually, they have treated him like he’s caused a riot every day.

            If he _had_ caused a number of riots, then that would explain why he’s been put in solitary more in these last months than he ever had in the last fifteen years since…since his wife was murdered. And now his son…

            Henry closes his eyes, taking a deep breath at the wave of fresh grief that threatens to overwhelm him. Weakness should not be shown, not now. When he gets to solitary he can, but not now.

            One of the guards shoves him forward, making him stumble. His eyebrows furrow in confusion at the rough treatment. Weird. They never got physical before.

            “Final destination for one Henry Allen,” Jackson snarks, opening the door to Henry’s new home for the next three days. It’s always three days, at weird times that he can’t really think of an association for. Why? _Why_? “Enjoy your night.”

            He’s shoved again, his knees crashing painfully against the cold ground of solitary. He lands on his face, hissing out a curse. It’s amazing, really, that he’s managed to keep his mild-manner-ness in the last fifteen years, but with the way they’re treating him now…yeah, he’s very close to ending that streak.

            Henry presses his back against the door and lets his cuffs be unlocked on both his wrists and ankles. When they’re free he _has_ to rub them, pressing out the deep imprints the metal left behind. He’s bleeding this time, just a small line of red around his left wrist.

            He wrinkles his nose at the mark before heading to the opposite wall, pushing his back against it and sliding down, pulling his knees against his chest. There’s nothing to do in solitary. He’s got a bed attached to the wall, a toilet attached to the wall, a small window with bars near the top of the ceiling, and nothing else but his thoughts to keep him occupied.

            Sometimes he relives the night he lost his beautiful wife, over and over again, sometimes with the added bonus of his son dying that same night. Other times it’s the day Iris and Eddie came to Iron Heights to tell him about the Metahuman Incident, about Joe’s death and Barry’s…disappearance. It hurts to think of how hopeful those two had been—have been—but Henry’s lost too much, seen too much darkness to believe in the hope that his son, his _metahuman_ son, lived through that.

            There are other times, though, that he thinks of happier stories. Times when his family was whole—Barry’s three grades advanced science projects, Nora reading him _The Time Machine_ to bed even though he only knew half the words, that time they tried to make Nora a cake and Barry knocked hi wedding ring in the garbage disposal and it somehow got turned on.

            Present time he rubs a thumb over the small groove left behind on his ring, breaking up the design on it ever-so-slightly. A smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. Barry had been devastated when it happened, freaking out. Wedding rings were basically sacred to their family and Barry held onto that belief with an iron grip. It took a good hour to calm him down, but he did in enough time for them to finish the cake and give Nora the best birthday ever.

            (which is good, considering it ended up being her last—no, don’t think about it.)

            He squeezes his eyes shut, clutching at his ring. God, he misses his family. Late nights with Nora, hot chocolate with Barry, family dinners, block parties with the Wests. They were _happy_ and _warm_. They were, God, they were his family.

            _He misses them so much_.

            Henry’s startled from memory lane when his door slides open. He jerks in surprise, eyes flying open to be greeted by five men _not_ dressed in the normal prison security uniform. They’re black, military. Army? It’s hard to tell, almost non-descript minus the shiny DMH on the chest, a lightning blot underneath.

            He scrambles to his feet, clenching one hand into a fist. To be honest, he’s a bit useless in a fight, but he won’t go down without one.

            “Who are you? What do you want?” he demands.

            One of them smirks. “I don’t think you really want us to answer that.”

            They enter the room and spread out, herding him into the center of the room and surrounding him easily. He’s wildly out numbered. Dread pools in his stomach, sweat slicks down his forehead. His fist seems useless now.

            Even if he wanted too, he can’t put of a fight. One guy feints left, another right, and someone grabs him from behind, yanking him into a tight chokehold on his knees, another pressing down on the back of his legs. Henry scrabbles at the arm around his throat, gasping at the pressure.

            “So sad, so easy,” someone mutters, sounding disgusted. “The brats put of more of a fight. Hell, Flash put up more that a fight.”

 Henry stills at that, eyes widening. Flash? _Barry_? Oh God, is this the man that killed his son during the Incident? What did he do? Hold him down and slit his throat? There was no body found, but Henry never dismissed the idea it was incinerated during the explosion, teeth too badly charred for dental records, fingers seared off so no fingerprints.

His eyes sting and he can’t stop the tears from streaking down his cheeks.

Someone forcibly rolls up his sleeves, exposing his forearms to the chilled air. He shivers, sagging in the grip around his neck.

“Did you kill my son?” he mumbles.

The grip loosens and someone splutters until they’re all laughing hysterically. One guy dropping to his knees in front of him.

“No,” the guy at his arm says. “No. That’s the best part, _Doctor_ Allen. Your son is alive and he’s the reason _you’re_ dead. He’s killing you. Your son is a disobedient brat. He _knew_ not following the rules would get you killed, but he did it anyway.”

Henry gasps. “I don’t believe you.” His son, _alive_.

“Gotta make it look self-inflicted.”

His son, alive, like Iris and Eddie spent so much time and energy believing in. He didn’t. He _failed_ his son. So little faith. He sobs, broken, catching in his throat. How could he?

There’s a sharp pain at his wrist, wrenching his eyes open. A sawed off spoon, yellowed with age and miss-shelving, pressed tight against his skin. He watches with a sort of detached-ness as crimson wells up like a bead, sliding down his skin to the dirty floor.

 The crude blade presses deeper. Henry cries out only to have a hand clamp over his mouth tightly. His scream is muffled as the spoon is slid slowly up his arm, burning, searing pain. His vision blurs, darkening at the corners. Whoever is hurting him switches hands and works on his left arm, going as agonizingly slow as before. The line is more jagged this time, just as crude as the shiv.

He’s _dropped_ on his back, his whole body jarring at the rough treatment. His arms are warm, but his body is cold. So, so cold.

A soldier leans over him. “Remember, blame Barry.” They tangle the shiv in Henry’s hand’s. “And to think. He’s only been a few miles from you this entire time. Fort Leonard Wood, right?”

Henry chokes. Fort—? That’s where…that’s where Iris had her Army interviews. _God,_ she was _right there_.

“He’s a screamer,” another says crudely. “Listening to him beg is just pathetic. How does it feel to raise such a weak brat as a son? Oh wait, you _didn’t_.”

And then they leave. Just like that. They just leave him alone, cold and alone, staring at the ceiling.

            The ground is cold, seeping through his thin clothes, pressing against his skin. He blinks sluggishly, the ceiling light warping slightly. Is it…moving? God, he’s so _tired_.

            Barry. _Barry_. His son, alive. His son…being tortured?

            He stutters out a breath, a sigh. His chest heavy, his eyelashes fluttering. There’s stars in the light, streaming from the window. They swirl like a cosmic whirlpool. A nebula? A black hole? What did Barry call them?

            Before, if he had died, he would’ve welcomed it, to be honest. His wife, his son.

            They would’ve been together.

            But now. He knows where his son is. He knows where to go, he could _save him_. _He could_.

            _He can’t_.

            The door opens again and heavy foot steps sound. Henry can’t even summon the energy to turn his head. A face appears above him, blurred by tears and exhaustion and darkness clawing at the corners of his vision. It’s just a mush of movement, but warmth touches his fingers, twisting something hard against his left hand. Henry blinks, slow and flutteringly.

            “’m r’ng,” he slurs. The blur pulls away, slipping his wedding ring from his finger, and he moves to follow it, energy surging. _No, no, please._ “Pl’sss-uh.”

            His hand drops weakly back on his chest.

            It’s too hard, too hard to…. _breathe_. Too…think. Nora—Nora.

            _I’m sor….sorry…_

           

 […]

The door slams open and he doesn’t even try to stop the flinch. His back screams at him and he bites his lip, tasting blood. A boot catches his shoulder, sending him crashing to the frozen ground with a cry of pain. Eiling is a blur above him, a smirking, off-colored blur. His foot planted on his chest, like a king proclaiming dominion.

“Poor hero,” he sneers. His heel presses down on Barry’s sternum, making him gasp, but all he can do is stay there splayed out like a butterfly pinned to a board. Eiling leans further over him, pressing down with too much, _too much_ —. “Your father died more of a hero than you’ll ever be, Allen. It’s a pity, really. Mourning the life of the son who killed him.”

Barry chokes on a breath. No. No, he’s lying. _He’s fucking lying_.

Eiling raises a hand over his face and he flinches again, his eyes burning with tears too cold, too broken to fall. Something silver flashes in his vision, dropping down, down in slow motion. He blinks once and suddenly it’s there, smacking his cheek and bouncing away.

He scrambles for it the best he can without moving too much, Eiling’s foot still _there_. His fingers hook around the object, too thick to wrap around tightly like he wants. His head moves on its own accord and suddenly he’s not looking at silver—he’s looking at _platinum_. He’s looking a dinged up [wedding ring](http://www.theweddingspecialists.net/wp-content/uploads/weddingandrings/2010/06/cheap-antique-style-wedding-ring-sets-3.jpg), the big gouge there from when he was ten and accidently knocked his dad’s ring into the garbage disposal when they were making his mom a birthday cake. Blood smears through the grooves…

His dad’s wedding ring… _no_.

A sob tears its way from up his chest, ripping his throat.

_No. no. nonono._

“Oh, but yes. Allen, this is the result of your fight with Snart,” Eiling says.

Barry clutches the ring high on his chest, his wrist touching the tip of Eiling’s boot, his hand at the hollow of his throat. “I-I f-fought,” he protests weakly.

Eiling laughs. “If you call that fighting, Flash. Which I don’t. Nice try.” He reaches down. “Now, I’m going to need that back. Can’t have you thinking you’ve been rewarded or anything.”

He keens, high pitched, curling his hand around the ring as tight as he can. No! No, he can’t take this from him—no—

Eiling grabs his hand, prying his fingers away from the ring. Barry fights it the best he can when _SNAP!_ And he _howls_ in pain, two of his fingers breaking like brittle twigs.

“N-No,” he whimpers. “P-please. Lemme,” he chokes, “lemme k-keep it. D-Dad.” He keens again. “D-Daddy,” he sobs.

“ _Pathetic_ ,” Eiling sneers.

_Snap!_ Another finger.

He loses the ring; it slips from his grip like everything else in his life does. Too weak to hold on to anything he cares about. Barry cries and cries, sobbing. He arches, reaching for his dad’s ring only to have Eiling pull away with the slightest of movements. He can’t catch up.

“Punishment,” Eiling says. “Think about this when you try to fight back again. We still have West and Thawne to go after, you know.”

The door closes, cutting him off from any warmth or light he could ever hope for again.

_Iris, Eddie._

His hand drops weakly back on his chest.

_Daddy, I’m so sorry._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit 04/28/16: The wedding ring link was no longer active. Updated it. It's still the same rings, just a different link. I hope it stays working.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Introducing: Hal Jordan
> 
> Hope I don't mess him up!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the lovely hedgi. It’s a little early, but it’s basically an anniversary present. On the 4th will be one year since we exchanged numbers and started texting each other. It barely feels like it. Thank you for being my friend through everything!

Kendra stands on the end of a cliff, the wind in her hair, the sun on her face. She dips her head back, closing her eyes, sparrows dance around her head singing a merry tune.

            When she was little she dreamed of being like that, a sparrow. Unfurling her wings and taking off into the skies, free. Free to do what ever she wanted.  She has memories of someone calling her their ‘ _petit moineau_.’ No one she knew spoke French and it took until she turned eleven to know what it even meant.

            Little sparrow.

            And at twenty-one, she rolled her shoulders, fell from a mountain, and _soared_.

            _Fell_.

            Kendra wakes with a jerk, starting from her heart and rolling to her stomach. She curls over the side of the bed, gagging, but nothing comes up but a small dribble of bile. Fire burns her back, lighting her nerves with white-hot flames. She moans and cries, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. The salt stinging the split in her lips.

            The sound bounces and echoes around the stark, gray walls. Kendra braces herself on the edge of her cot as a fresh wave of nausea announces itself. She yelps when her broken arm screeches, and she goes tumbling to the ground with a painful crash.

            She lays there, raw and throbbing back pressed against too cold concrete, staring blurry-eyed at the dark ceiling. She lays there and _sobs_.

            _Wings_.

            Wings were her freedom, patterned like a common sparrow and just as gorgeous, but now…now wings are her _exoticness_ , they were what made her _wanted_. Like something to display. Poke and prod.

It takes one week for her wings to grow back from just sawing them off with a bone saw.

It takes three weeks for them to grow back after _digging_ in her shoulder blades, looking for the roots.

This…it had been a bone saw again and she’s sure, she’s so sure this is just sadism at this point. They get their jollies off cutting off her wings and putting them on display in their office. Like a trophy.

She’ll forever have scarring from her fight with Bette, small bursts of speckled white along her skin from their two fights. She’s fought Bette twice, and Tony three times. Mark once. Tony mentioned the Flash at one point, she heard enough about him from her time Before that the idea of meeting— _fighting_ him causes nightmares.

Kendra flips onto her stomach, pillowing her cheek against her folded hands.

She could try to fall asleep again, ignore the pain and the hopelessness. She could sleep and dream about flying, about a man who looks at her with so much love she feels like she’s drowning. Dream about falling and crashing, plummeting to the ocean like Icarus too close to the sun.

Her face feels tight; she feels all cried out. Her eyes swollen and itchy. The door sort of wavers, bending at the frame. She closes her eyes tightly, willing the world _Please, when I open my eyes let me be back home_.

Of course, when she looks, she’s still in this tiny cell with her creaky, uncomfortable cot bolted to the ground.

She sobs, burying her face against her arm, pressing tight against her eyes. There’s a crawling, itchy feeling on her back, along her shoulder blades. A thousand tiny spiders with white-hot blades as legs digging into her skin, finding the roots of her wings.

Her feathers, prickling, itching, scratching, _burning_.

 _Tap_ , she hits her forehead against her arms, squeezing her eyes shut so tightly sparks burst.

_Tap._

_Tap._

Her forehead meets concrete floor, a dull thud. It shocks her out of her misery for a second, her skin stinging. But then the throb distracts her from her back.

 _Tap_.

She does it again.

 _Tap. Tap. Tap_.

It hurts. It hurts so much. A dull throb, pounding, a jackhammer from a focal point spidering— _spidering_ —out to her skull, wrapping her head in a cobweb.

Home. Wings. Flying. _Falling_.

What deity did she piss off? What did she _do_? She wants her _mam.’_ She wants her _sœur_. She wants home, _please._

Kendra scrubs at her face angrily, rubbing away tears and pain. She’s so distracted by her pain she almost misses the quiet _knock_ at the door. She jumps, tensing, the hairs on the back of her neck standing on end.

The door creaks open. Kendra scrambles to her feet, stumbling when her ankle gives out. She braces herself for ‘ _Hawkgirl_ ,’ but it never comes. Instead:

“Kendra.”

She blinks, jaw dropping, hardly daring to believe.

“ _Bette_?”

 

* * *

**[A few days earlier]**

 

If only Carol could see him now.

            His face throbs. Probably about half his face is purple now. For a guy who’s powers rely on eye contact and emotion manipulation, Roy Bivolo packs a mean fucking punch.

            Hal take s deep breath through his nose, holding himself in by willpower alone. Of all the things he tagged along to with Carol, meditation hadn’t seemed like the most useful of all of it. Yet, here he is, using meditation to keep the overwhelming fear from, er, being overwhelming.

            This is a fear he can control, he can overcome.

            Screw Eiling, screw the Department.

            He’s Hal fucking Jordan. He’s got this.

            His ribs screech at him and he winces. Okay, okay, no he’s still got this. It’s just a very painful got this. Nothing he can’t handle.

            Yeah? Nothing he can’t handle.

            Hal takes another deep breath, moving his chest deliberately exaggerated.

            He wonders if Carol is worried about him. Is she looking for him? It’s been a month. He’s disappeared for a couple days here and there, but never for a full month. The longest he disappeared had been four days and that was because a _tree_ fell on him when he was trying to help with an apartment collapse. In the chaos it took a while for emergency contacts to be contacted.

            He’d been pretty hurt. Just thinking about it makes him hurt.

            _Ow_. Or it could be the fact that he’s actually hurt, yeah.

            “Jordan, get up.”

            He groans. “Come _on_. I just fought Bivolo. You’ve already tried electrocuting me. Can we just call it quits and you admit you got it wrong? I’m not a potential.”

            “ _Get up_.”

            Hal climbs to his feet, the room spinning just a bit, and lets the guards escort him down the hall. “You guys are the _worst_ hosts.”

            Someone prods his back and he stumbles, swearing under his breath. The collar is too tight around his neck, his capris a little too loose. Hm, a month of not eating properly would do that. Maybe he should ask for a new pair? They wouldn’t give him any, but he could do it just to be annoying.

            His jaw protests that and, yeah, maybe he shouldn’t, just for now. Next time, definitely. _Definitely_. Twice for good measure.

            Door. Door. Door. Locker rooms. Gym. Yay.

            The guy across from him is tall, sandy haired, and too thin. Hal wrinkles his nose. Does he look that thin too?

            Hal leans back on his heels, crossing his arms. “Lemme guess, you have powers and I don’t and this isn’t going to be fun?”

            He chuckles, voice cracking a bit. Hal winces. “How long have you been here?”

            “A month.” Hal shrugs. “Hal Jordan.”

            “Mark,” is the only thing offered.

            The bell rings and immediately the air changes, like a summer storm out nowhere. Hal takes a step back, a crackle of ozone making the hair on his arms stand. Mark. Mark Mardon, the Weather Wizard of Central City.

            How many guys the Flash fights is in this compound? Jesus Christ.

            “I don’t have any powers,” Hal repeats, trying to sound as casual as possible. “Try not to make any permanent marks. Especially to the face. Do you see this face?”

            Mark laughs again, a little sad, a little broken. “Of course you don’t.” He closes his eyes, shoulders sagging. “Of course you don’t,” he repeats, softer, angrier. He raises a hand, fingers curled like he’s going to throw a baseball. “I won’t kill you,” he says in promise. “Won’t aim for the face. Can’t make too much of a promise on that one, though.”    

            There’s enough foreshadowing for Hal to dodge the first lightning strike. His nerves tingle and his ears ring. He sits on the floor only a foot from the scorch mark.

            Oh fuck, he’s so screwed.

            No, no. _He’s_ got _this._

            He _has_ to.

 

* * *

 

**[Same time as Hal versus Mark]**

“Would you like a coat, Mrs. Queen? First timers always have a problem with the cold.”

            Moira pulls her shawl a little tighter, shaking her head ever-so-slightly. “No, thank you. A little cold never harmed anyone…. normal,” she adds when she eyes the freezer door one more time.

            She can see her breath in front of her and it takes everything in her power to keep her teeth from chattering, giving away any weakness. The doctor (for lack of a better term) eyes her, but nods, not saying a word. For that, Moira is glad. If the doctor had asked again she would’ve broken down for an extra layer. And the idea of having an extra layer while Mr. Allen, well, does not, makes her a little ill.

            Why she ever agreed to the DMH, she will never fully comprehend. All in a twisted days work for Malcolm Merlyn. Threaten her husband, threaten her family, threaten her city. None of it will stand and if she can yank the chair from under him and let him hand himself, she will have no problems tying the knot for him.

            First, she must navigate the Gordian that is in front of her.

            Most of the metahumans must be free, she can’t hope for all of them to get out alive that’s just unrealistic, but most. More than fifty-percent. That is a number to strive for.

            Mr. Rathaway needs to be on that list, for her children’s sake. A childhood friend, torn from them because of bigoted parents. She can’t let him die or stay behind.

            Miss. San Souci and Mr. Allen are next. They have been here the longest, they kicked off Eiling’s mad quest. She has seen their suffering first hand—if only through video—and she lives through the nightmares she’s caused by standing idly by.

            Well no more.

            Two out of the three she _knows_ will survive. They will escape, have the others join. One, though. She did believe in him before…before Eiling decided to make Mr. Allen his Favorite.

            Moria stands in the background, a silent observer, as security goes into the freezer and wheels out Mr. Allen.

            He’s not even strapped down and she feels ill all over again. Mr. Allen— _Barry_ , Moira, you’re watching him break right in front of you, call him _Barry_ for God’s sake—Barry’s head lolls to the side, catching her gaze.

            There’s nothing there.

            No spark. No lightning. This is not the man Eiling raged about at conferences or Wells admired silently (oh, he didn’t think she sees, but she _does_. Admiration. Bastardization of some sort of love—lust? Something beyond, something _twisted_ ). This is a poor, broken boy. Not a son anymore.

            They wheel him to the corner of the room, taping a line to his arm and hooking up an IV of glucose and a few different nutrients. He’s not eating, hasn’t for the last couple of days. Since Henry Allen’s suicide.

            Moira slides closer, standing at his head, looking down.

            For a moment she could believe this is Oliver. Her son, her pride. She could believe this is Thea, her lost-daughter come home, darkness in her eyes from living as a Merlyn. She reaches out, hesitant, brushing her fingers through his hair. It’s greasy and brittle, matted in some places. Her hand comes back tainted with a dusty of dried blood.

            His eyes stare just above her shoulder, half-lidded, feverish. It’s…unnerving.

            This is what has happened. She let this get so far. She could’ve intercepted the order Eiling sent for Thawne and West to killed, could’ve stopped the men from going after Henry Allen. Instead she let blind faith that Eiling respected her and Wells’ wishes to not go too far. Threats. Yes. Carrying them out? No.

            Barry’s fingers twitch at his side and he whimpers. He moves like an old man left out in the cold, curling his fingers around the loose fabric at his thigh. A tear leaks from the corner of his eye, dripping into his hairline.

            Moira does not risk wiping the tear away. She is a mother, but she is a business woman as well, and she cannot make that risk.

            She does, however, press her thumb against his neck, firm, but soft. Hidden by the thinness of his body from any curious eyes. It’s nothing but warmth, assurance. A moment, a spark to keep him going. A message that this could all be over soon, that he’s not as alone as he thinks.

            It’s a pathetic attempt.

            But if her son, her daughter, had been here. She would’ve done a lot more.

            Unfortunately, circumstances means that this will have to do.

            “Mrs. Queen, would you like to see our procedures?”

            She looks up from Barry, her thumb still in place—probably feeling like a brand against the coldness of the freezer—and smiles. “Yes. I would like that.”

 


	9. Chapter 9

  
**[a few days after Henry Allen’s ‘suicide’]**

**[three days before Bette comes to Kendra’s cell]**

* * *

 

“Iris.” Cisco swallows thickly. As soon as she turns to look at him, bags under her eyes and her hair messy, he regrets saying anything. But…But this has to be done. She has to know before the official call. “Iris—.” This is too hard. He’s only known her for a few months, he doesn’t even know Barry, why did he take on this role?

Her eyes are already too shiny, predicting the bad news that’s on the tip of his tongue. “What’s wrong?” she asks quietly, her chin trembling.

He takes her hand in his, her fingers shaking. “Henry is dead,” he says in one breath.

She just stares at him, silent. Tears bubble over and trail down her cheeks, but she doesn’t make a sound. Cisco reaches out to feel her vibe and feels the boiling storm beneath the surface, thunder and lightning swirling in a whirlpool. He doesn’t let go of her hand, brushing a thumb over tight knuckles. Now he wishes he had waited until Eddie came home from work, Iris had insisted they could hang out at the restaurant and wait for him, but Cisco could’ve kept the news to himself until Iris and Eddie could support each other.

Instead he had to get away from himself, ignoring his own argument to not tell her.

Iris rips her hand from him and curls it around the edge of the table, hunching over like she’s been punched in the gut. “W-When?” she gasps, demanding. “H-How?”

“Two nights ago,” he answers slowly. “Suicide.”

She barks out a strangled, not-right laugh before clamping a hand over her mouth, the laughter wheezing through her nose instead. Tears streak down her cheeks, her shoulders tremble—her whole body shakes.

Cisco’s throat tightens at the sight. “It wasn’t suicide,” he adds uselessly. He can tell she already knows that, that she doesn’t believe that Henry Allen would ever kill himself. Not him, not like that. “But that’s what’s going to be on the report, and the call. You were put down as his EC/NoK when Barry ‘disappeared.’” He should’ve waited for Eddie. “They’re going to call you tonight, probably. I just hacked the prison records this morning.”

Iris shakes her head, choking on a sob. She jerks to her feet, knocking her water to the ground.

It shatters into uncountable pieces. Water splashes, drenching the floor. The noise attracts every patron’s attention. Some turn away, other stare shamelessly. A waitress comes closer, a pinched, concerned expression on her pretty face.

Iris dashes out of the restaurant, leaving her bag and scarf behind. Cisco stays behind for a long moment, throat burning and eyes stinging. He gives the waitress a wobbly, sad smile.

“Her father-in-law died last night,” he half lies to the woman. He must looks devastated enough for the waitress to give him a look of pity in reply.

And he is, that part is not a lie.

Iris is his friend. Eddie is his friend. He may have never met Henry or Barry, but Cisco feels like he knows both of them like he could call them up right now and talk like old friends.

He leaves money for the inconvenience (they never got to order) and grabs Iris’ things before heading out to the sidewalk. Iris hasn’t gone far, she found a bench a few store fronts down. Doubled over, elbows on knees and face in hands, she’s the perfect, horrible picture of defeat.

Cisco sits next to her silently, their shoulders brushing.

“When will this nightmare be over?” she mumbles eventually, voice thick with sorrow and grief. “And to think, Henry’s death is barely brushing the surface.”

He loops an arm through hers then rests his head on her shoulder with a sigh. “I guess…” He presses his lips together for a second before pushing forward. “I guess the best thing about nightmares,” he says. “Is that they don’t last forever and we eventually wake up.”  


* * *

  
  
Cold metal burns against her cheek. Kendra squeezes her eyes shut, willing the tears not to fall, as the hand at the back of her head pushes her even harder down against the table. They act like she’s fighting back. Which, she’s not, okay? She’s not fighting back. Her wings are barely stumps at this point, too slow at growing back for a third time.

She feels lost without them.

They strap her down—ankles, thighs, waist, upper arms, wrists, neck—her back exposed for them to poke around once again.

Kendra gasps desperately, breathless. Her heart thundering in her chest in a panic. The scientist move around her, talking to each other (never _to_ her, like she’s a person or anything), and never once touching her after they’ve strapped her down.

She waits, stiff and tense, for the first hand on her skin, that first spark of pain. She waits and waits, the panic increasing, swelling like a wave, until she can’t take it anymore and lets the tears fall. Kendra opens her eyes, vision blurry, and blinks, blinks, clearing the fuzz away.

Dull green watches back.

She sucks in a breath at the sight.

“ _Barry_ ,” she hardly dares to breathe.

Except…that’s not Barry. It can’t be. It’s only been…a month, at most, since they last fought, how did he get so bad in so little time? Unless…does she look so drastically bad?

No, she couldn’t. He…he doesn’t even look _human_ at this point.

He’s curled on his side, facing her, chest bare, oxygen mask over his mouth, no less than three IVs snaking into the crook of his arm. His hair’s longer, greasy. There’s lines around his eyes and brows that are too deep for a young man. He’s whiter than normal, pale, bruises and scars and fresh wounds line his chest and arms.

And his eyes…his eyes look _dead_. His chest barely moves, the mask fogging up just only slightly.

They lock gazes, but Kendra can’t be sure he’s actually seeing her. There’s no recognition in his eyes, no twitch that he’s acknowledging him.

God, what did they _do_ to him?

Cold, cold, _cold_ , touches the small of her back and she whimpers. Barry watches silently as they manipulate the featherless stumps sprouting from her shoulder blades.

“Magic. Biology. It’s an interesting combination,” someone mutters. “After digging them out like we did, there should be nothing to grow back. Yet they do. But they still affect her like they’re a real, biological part.”

_Pain_.

Sharp jabs into her skin. She screams out loud, clenching her hands into fists. The ragged nails on each finger dig into her skin, splitting open old wounds. Her tears are hot on her cold face. She kicks with her feet, getting nowhere. Her toes slip and slide on the metal table.

“Please, please, please, please.”

“Now, now, Hawkgirl. You should know by now struggling gets you nowhere.”

Kendra sobs. “Please, please.”

She glances pleadingly at Barry, not really sure what he can do to help. Her brain is so scrambled right now. The pain makes it hard to think. But…but the Flash is a _hero_ , right? Even in this hell hole, the Flash is a hero. He has to be able to do _something_ , fucking _anything_.

  
No. No—he’s a person too, that’s too much. Too much to put on someone.

But please. Please someone help her. Make them stop. Make them stop. _Make them stop._

“ _Please_ ,” she rasps.

To who? To the mad scientists? To God? To the man in her dreams? To Barry? To Barry who is laying there, dull and dead, his fingers twitching?

This is a nightmare and hell all wrapped up in one. She just wants to wake up already. Wake up, go to work, drink coffee, and just enjoy her life and her wings.

Barry’s hand falls off the table and, for a moment, she wants to believe he’s reaching for her. But he doesn’t do anything other than let his hand hang, fingers still twitching.

Kendra meets his eyes again and her heart sinks. They’re still as lifeless as they were only minutes ago.

Perhaps there is no help from the Flash.

Maybe they just broke him just once too much and now the broken child’s toy can never work again.  
  


* * *

  
  
Pretty bird. Barry knows a lot of pretty birds. (two right now, but that’s two more than he knew a few years ago. Hm. Pretty birds.). This one is different than the canary he knows. This one’s a sparrow, a hawk. He knows her name…right? Starts with a K. Kim? Kasey?

No. Kendra.

Her name’s Kendra.

And she’s screaming.

All Barry can do is watch. He can’t move, he can’t speak. Anything that made up him before is gone. Dead with his dad and his mom. He’s almost comforted with the knowledge Iris and Eddie are probably not looking for him anymore. If they ever were. ( _Safe. They’re safe)_

God. How many people are in here?

There’s Kendra. One. Mark. Two. Bette. Two - wait, did he already count two? His _head_ -

They can’t...they can’t all stay here. They’re not fuck ups like him. They have their family and friends waiting for them, right? Looking for them.

Barry...Barry use to (foolishly, maybe) see himself as a hero.

The _Flash_  of Central City.

Yellow lightning and a red suit.

The pretty bird screams again, long and low. The keening of a wounded animal, her toes scraping at the steel table to just _get away, get away. (Please, let me go. Let me go!)_

(It’s useless to scream - to cry - to beg. He should’ve learned that himself sooner - He hopes she does..)

Can he do anything? - anything at all?

No. No, he can’t. He’s _useless_. Barely able to even _think_ clearly -

He just...wants to give comfort to this screaming bird. She keeps looking at him with wide brown eyes, tears making them bright. She’s looking at him like she’s searching for something she’s only passingly familiar with.

His fingers twitch. Just a little. An aborted movement to reach for her, to comfort with what little comfort his cold hands, cold trembling hands, will bring.

Barry’s thought about it many times. About what kind of broken thing he is. He’s a useless broken thing. Some times broken things can be useful in a new way, or pretty after you’ve fixed them up with lines of gold through the cracks.

...Could he have another use?

Could he help?

Barry tries to sigh, but it seems to take too much energy. Too, too much energy.

Kendra screams again, dying to a whimper.

She meets his eyes once again and Barry can’t deny the urge to reach for her, not anymore. His hand slides against the cold metal, fingers curling limply under his palm, until he makes it off the table. He wants to reach between them, _stretch_ and hold her hand. Assure her she’ll be okay.

His hand dangles uselessly over the edge of the table.

The hopeful light in Kendra’s eyes - a fragile, tremulous hope - dies swiftly, a shadow falling over her expression.

-

A fire sparks, deep in his chest. Just a tiny flicker, smaller than a candle light, but there.

He might be a broken thing, a useless thing, but no one else here is. They are people, they are human, they _need_ to be out of this dreadful, hellish place.

Barry might be able to help them with that.

 

* * *

 

His hands don’t work.

Hartley stares at his fingers - fat, shaking, snaking scars wrapped around his joints and along his hands to his wrists - and tries his best to curl them ever-so-slightly.

They don’t.

They’ve _ruined_ his hands.

He...He can’t play the flute or the clarinet anymore. Can’t play the piano. He’d gonna have a hell of a time playing chess. And don’t get him started on using a screwdriver or a soldering gun with the precision he would need.

Not that he would ever get the opportunity. At this point...At this point he’s resigned to his fate. He’s spent _months_ trying to figure out how to get past security and out of this damn collar, but every plan he comes up with is road blocked with something completely different. For instance, the latest roadblock is this:

He can’t leave anyone behind.

Not even Barry Allen.

_That_ is the biggest problem out of everyone. He sees their doors every day when he’s led out, but Barry has no door in this corridor. No, he has a Goddamn _freezer_.

Hartley sighs, his back curling so he can cradle his head in his numb hands. He’s done some criminal things in his life, but nothing completely drastic. Nothing completely drastic to deserve _this_.

“Pied Piper.”

He jerks, startled. He - He hadn’t even heard the footsteps. His stomach churns as he stands, shuffling towards the door and to his fate.

Once he’d fought back - shoved his shoulder into one guard and made a break for it. It’d been after his first dissection, he couldn’t even move his arms.

Unsurprisingly, he hadn’t gotten very far.

Hartley keeps his head down as they guide him towards the gym again. Who is he fighting this time? Kendra? Bette? Mark? Or, God forbid, Tony or Barry. He hasn’t seen Barry in at least a week.

When they shove him into the gym he stumbles, crashing to his knees. They sting, his joints aching and nerves on fire. He catches himself with his hands, wincing when a curled finger or two is caught between his palm and the floor.

A soft sigh catches his attention, he glances up to see - oh God - Barry sitting a few yards away from him, legs crossed and hands limp in his lap. He stares at Hartley with half-lidded eyes, head tilted to the side.

“B-Barry.”

His eyelashes flutter and he _almost_ meets Hartley gaze - but then he’s rolling, stumbling to his feet, arms around his stomach in a pathetic attempt to hold himself together. His clothes are even looser on him now, his hair greasy and long, his beard dark. The smudges under his eyes speak of no sleep, blood smears from the corner of his lip across his cheek. His right ankle is purple and black, both ankles carry anklets of scars and open wounds. He’s shoeless, his toes bloody and blue.

He takes a step back, leaving behind an ink smear of blood on the wooden floor.

All of that, though, is nothing - _nothing_ \- compared to the Goddamn _look_ in his eyes.

Knock. Knock. No one’s home.

Hartley can’t move, he can’t breathe. Even as Barry shuffles closer, toes dragging. Even as the alarm shrills once and loud.

He just wants to curl up in a ball and cry. Cry for his hands. For his rat. For his parents who don’t even care. For his sister who _does_. He wants to cry for all the people _trapped_ here with him. For the friends he use to have. For the person he use to be. For the Flash.

For Barry Allen.

But he doesn’t.

He doesn’t cry.

Hartley struggles to his feet, biting back a whimper of pain, and sticks his chin out defiantly. He won’t let them see him break. Not again. Not like this.

Barry’s head tilts away, his chin pressing against his shoulder. If Hartley weren’t paying attention he’d never see the way the speedster’s eyes flicker towards the edges of the room where the cameras lie.

Blink -

\- and he’s gone. Ozone floods the air.

_oompf_!

Hartley’s bowled over by someone much lighter than they should be. He barely gets a chance to react before hands, _hands_ are around his throat. Thumbs pressed between the collar and his skin, firm against the tender flesh there and pressing, _pressing_ down.

“Bar - ry -,” he chokes out, his hands heavy clubs trying to wrap around his wrists. “Bar -!”

He wonders if there’s anything written about the poetry about death by lightning. How the whole world in that single second zeroes down to the crackle along his skin, the smell of burning, the taste of ozone on the tip of his tongue. His teeth ache, his vision statics and darkens at the corners. He’s touching a live wires, an electric fence. It’s night, the horizon purple and red, and the sky is clear, thunder rolls in the distance, but lightning strikes too close - _too fucking close_.

Hartley gasps - a drowning man desperate for air only to get a mouthful of water. Panic seizes him, a pit in his stomach crawling up, up, up to his throat.

He almost misses the way Barry leans in close, their noses touching.

He almost misses the way the grip around his neck loosens ever-so-slightly.

He almost misses the soft _click_ around his neck.

_Almost_.

Barry’s eyes aren’t a natural color anymore. Gold, like his lightning. Flecks of hazel-green in the depths, overtaken by flashes of white. His pupils are too dark-black in comparison. A wolf. A leopard. _Something Else._

His teeth vibrate and it takes him a moment to realize that it’s not Death playing games with him - no, it’s Barry. Barry’s hands around his neck, legs straddling him, nose to nose, and _vibrating_ enough that Hartley can feel the way his own powers react, their frequencies melding for this one second.

“ _G-Get o-out_ ,” is what Barry says. He has no voice. It’s a whisper, a breath. It’s subhuman, high and low. A tone that shouldn’t be possible. “ _Take - T-Take oth-others. Get - Get out-t._ ”

Hartley opens his mouth to respond - to ask. How? Why? What? - but then the pressure increases and he’s out. Out.

(“ _G-Get out-t.”)_

He wakes in his cell with a jerk and a painful gasp, his throat protesting every noise and move he makes. Hartley reaches for his neck, his hands feeling this swollen skin there, and -

\- and something else.

It clatters quietly against his collar. Hartley hooks his fingers around it the best he can, sliding them along as he realizes it goes all the way around his neck. He touches the back, feeling where the two ends meet.

For a too long minute he fumbles to get his clumsy, broken fingers to work at the latch. But, it clicks and he pulls it away, half-fearing what he might find.

He stares wide-eyed, his heart pounding in the cage of his ribs.

A collar.

Hartley’s hand flies to his neck. His own collar is still there, cold against the sudden heat flushing his body.

A collar around his neck. A collar in his hand. Identical in every way he can tell based on the ones he’s seen around the others - except - except -

This one’s not attached to anyone.

Hartley takes it in two hands, thumbing the box near the back where they clip together. There’s a blinking light there he doesn’t remember seeing before. Flashing red. One. One, two. One. One, two.

He stares at his useless hands and then at the seam of the box. His stomach growls, his throat aches. His hair is too long. His nose isn’t healed properly from a different fight. Something in his chest shifts unnaturally, broken.

And he sighs, leaning back against the wall, staring up at the ceiling.

What the hell does Barry want from him?

(“ _Take - T-Take oth-others_.”)

But not him?

Hartley turns the collar in his hands every which way. If he ignores the pain it will cause and use both hands, he could probably pry it open and figure out how it works.

If he can do that, he can turn his off.

If he can turn his off then he can use his powers.

Using his powers means he can talk to the other sub-sonic, walk Bette through turning hers off so she’s able to use her bombs.

And if he can’t turn it off, then, well, he has the mechanism for locking it right in front of him. Maybe he could just, take it off?

Hartley struggles to tamp down on the rising hope in his gut and forces himself to sigh again. Looks like he has a lot of work to do.

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
